Food Science Research Day - May 8, 2025
Date and Time
Location
Details
Join us for a day full of opportunities to:
- Learn about the research and training activities at the Food science Department at UofG and how these align with your priorities
- Connect with our top students and your future employees
- Engage in networking activities with our students, researchers and distinguished guest speakers, and fellow industry partners
- Explore collaboration opportunities giving access to our state-of-the-art equipment and expertise
- Learn how industry can get involved in research and training activities at the Food Science Department at UofG
- Tour our research facilities and pilot plants’
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AgendaMorning - 8:00 Light Breakfast and Registration Poster Session Afternoon -1:00 Keynote lecture by Dr. Lynne McLandsborough (University of Massachusetts) Sponsorship opportunities are available. Sponsor logos will feature prominently at the event and on promotional materials, and receive registrations. Contact Leona Varga lvarga@uoguelph.ca for details. Registration: |
Keynote Speakers
Dr. Jan A. Delcour (University of Leuven)
Jan A. Delcour is a scientist in Food Science, Biochemistry, and Cereal Research. In his work, he focuses on generating and communicating basic insights into the starch, non-starch polysaccharide, and protein constituents of cereals, as well as on plant and microbial enzyme systems converting such constituents. At the same time, he applies such insights in cereal based biotechnological processes with the aim (i) to develop and optimize processes, (ii) to develop the production of health promoting constituents, and (iii) to contribute to product organoleptic properties. Throughout his career, he has attached a lot of importance on covering the knowledge chain from fundamental research over application oriented research to applications themselves. He has collaborated or collaborates with international companies. He is the author of 750 peer reviewed papers and his Web of Science and Google Scholar Hirsch Indices are 100 and 121, respectively. He is an ISI highly cited author. With R. Carl Hoseney, he is the author of the book “Principles of Cereal Science and Technology”. He is also co-editor of the books “Advances in Enzymes in Grain Processing”, and “Fibre-Rich and Wholegrain Foods: Improving Quality” and inventor on some 25 patent families. He also has been the co-founder of the spinout company Fugeia and with his colleague Kristin Verbeke has held the Kellogg Chair in Cereal Science and Nutrition at KU Leuven.
Throughout his career, Jan A Delcour has earned numerous accolades and awards for his ground breaking work in these areas. He is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts and the recipient of the William Geddes Memorial Lectureship, the Excellence in Teaching Award, the William Geddes Memorial Award and the Osborne Medal from AACC International. In addition, he received the prestigious Bertebos Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. He is a Fellow of AACC International and the ICC Academy and received the Harald Perten Award from ICC, the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology. He has been President-elect, President and Chairman of the Board of AACC International. He has been a senior editor of Cereal Chemistry.
Dr. Lynne McLandsborough (University of Massachusetts)
Outbreaks associated with low-moisture foods are a persistent problem. In recent years, multiple high-profile outbreaks of salmonellosis were associated with low-moisture foods, including chocolate and peanut butter. Most food processing manufacturers use daily water-based cleaning to remove food residues, followed by a sanitizing step to destroy bacteria. In contrast, low-moisture food processing facilities (such as peanut butter and chocolate) utilize "dry cleaning." which occurs less frequently in low-moisture food processing facilities. Dry cleaning often involves physically removing food by vacuuming, scraping, or scrubbing with or without hot oil flushing. While oil flushes remove the food residues in processing lines, they are not a "sanitizing" process since Salmonella exhibits higher heat resistance in high-fat and low-water environments. To solve this problem, the McLandsborugh laboratory has asked: Can we formulate oils to make them antimicrobial? We have tested a variety of antimicrobial oil formulations and have reported that the addition of low levels of water (0.3-3%) to acidified oil in the form of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions greatly enhanced the antimicrobial activity against dried Salmonella sp. and Listeria monocytogenes. The level of microbial destruction (>6.2 log kill) is similar to water-based sanitizing agents and uses less water than typically used in solvent-based sanitizers. We have also taken a similar approach to developing sanitizing agents using alternative solvents for hand-cleaning applications. Based on results with reduced osmotic pressure formulations, we hypothesize the enhanced killing by the acidified W/O emulsions was due to a combination of acid, which causes cell membrane damage, and the differential osmotic pressure created by the W/O emulsion. Acidifying oil for sanitation is a paradigm shift and a significant breakthrough toward solving a persistent problem for manufacturers of low-moisture foods. Ultimately, oil-based sanitizers may increase the frequency of sanitation in low-moisture food processing, improving food safety.
Dr. Stéphane Bayen (McGill University)
Suspect and non-targeted analysis (NTA), using high resolution mass spectrometry and advanced data processing tools, allows for the rapid characterization of thousands of never-before-studied chemicals in complex matrices. Using this approach, large chemical fingerprints can now be recorded for each food sample, offering new perspectives in terms of food quality, food safety and food authenticity. In this talk, key applications of suspect and non-targeted analysis for agri-food systems will be first presented. First, some recent studies on the non-targeted analysis of chemical leaching from plastic food contact materials by LC-QTOF-MS will be introduced, and results demonstrate the capacity of NTA to uncover new contaminants of concern. In the second part dedicated to honey, we will introduce a simple “dilute and shoot” method using LC-QTOF-MS for honey and show its capacity to investigate simultaneously HMF (marker of freshness), chemical contaminants, and markers of botanical origin in honey. These results demonstrate that LC-MS based fingerprinting appears as a remarkable alternative to conventional methods targeting only limited types of quality and safety attributes, and chemical fingerprints are virtually impossible to imitate for fraudsters due to their complexity.
Dr Stéphane Bayen is Associate Professor in the Department of Food Sciences and Agricultural Chemistry at McGill University. After completing a doctorate in analytical chemistry at the National University of Singapore, he carried out research in Switzerland and Singapore on chemical contaminants. Over the last ten years, he has established an independent research program, focused on the development of innovative approaches to perform non-targeted analysis of chemical substances in various matrices (food, breast milk, air, water, soil, etc.) using high-resolution mass spectrometry. Its research activities are mainly in the broad areas of food analysis and exposure assessment with the application of a better knowledge of the human exposome. Stéphane Bayen is the author or co-author of over 110 scientific publications and >250 presentations, and received the Agilent Thought Leader Global Award in 2021.
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