FOSC 311 Food Product Development

Course Coordinator

Professor Phil Bremer

Fiona Nyhof

Lecturers

Fiona Nyhof and various guest lecturers

Introduction

This course involves working in small teams of three or four students to develop a food product using the resources of the Food Science department, and the wider University. The team work will enable students to interact and apply their specialized knowledge gained in other courses, e.g. food chemistry, food microbiology, quality assurance, sensory science and food marketing, in a 'simulated industrial R & D setting'. Projects are solicited from industries and can be from any stage of the product development process. Students may also submit their own proposals for approval, if interested.

The main aims of the development project are:

• Setting a learning environment that simulates industrial situations so that students have a good understanding of the food technologist profession,
• Provide situations in which the students will gain experience in solving scientific / technical problems during the food product development process.

In addition, the students are expected to learn the following skills:

• The importance of mutual co-operation, communication and interpersonal skills in a working environment,
• To be able to plan, conduct and terminate a project in a timely manner and prepare written reports, oral presentations and produce product prototypes, in a professional manner,
• Give consideration to ethical issues of wholesomeness of food in market place, the need for such a product, issues of plant waste and environmental contaminations, problem of nutrient preservation, problems related to safe use of ingredients and process, problems relating to marketing and advertising of food products, issues related to regulatory status of foods, and patent rights and proprietary information.

Course Format

Lectures

There are three 50 minute lectures per week for the first 6 weeks in semester 1 and one lecture or seminar per week in the first part of semester 2.

Laboratories

There is one 4 hour lab per week.

Tutorials

There are six two hour tutorials in the first six weeks of semester 1 and for the remainder of the course there is a 40 minute team meeting with the 'project manager' each Monday afternoon.

Course References

Please enquire with course co-ordinator.

Assessment

This paper is 100% internally assessed, based on individual marks (30%) and team mark (70%). Marks are comprised of: product concept report (4%), lab work (14%), approach to solving the product development problem (5%), four oral presentations (20%), written project reports (50%) and mid-term exam (7%).