Food Science

In the spirit of the holiday season, the Food Science Club worked with the collegiate Future Farmers of America (FFA) on a (what else) food based community service project. The FFA group wanted to bake from scratch (save the crust) 15 apple pies for donation to the St. Vincent dePaul housing complexes here in Madison. The enthusiastic group peeled and cut apples, prepared the pie filling and assembled the pies in the pilot plant. The pies were then baked in the bakery using the large industrial rotating oven. The pies turned out perfectly and were delivered warm to the housing complex the same evening.

Dr. Jim Behnke gave a seminar to faculty, staff, students and the public on Leadership and Product Development in the Food Industry. The seminar was held on October 22. Dr Behnke is a graduate of the Department of Food Science and was Senior Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer at the Pillsbury Company. Dr. Behnke’s presentation focused on his experiences about leadership, creativity, and cultural diversity in new product development for food companies.

Robert Rennebohm received the Honorary Recognition Award at the CALS Honorary Recognition Banquet on October 27. Robert Rennebohm graduated from the Food Science department in 1948 (when it was called Dairy and Food Industries) and had a distinguished career with the UW-Foundation including being its executive director and later its president. He has been a strong supporter of the Food Science department, the college and the university. He played an instrumental part in the Babcock Hall renovation fund drive and the efforts to create the Tygum Auditorium, which is widely used for supporting continuing education of industry personnel via short courses.

Master Cheese Maker Retires - Master cheese maker Walt Brandli retired from the Babcock Hall Dairy Plant on September 2, 2004. Walt joined Babcock Dairy in 1992 after operating his own cheese factory in Muscoda WI for 35 years. Although his specialty is Gouda cheese, Walt made a variety of other cheeses including Cheddar, Swiss, Havarti, Romano, Monterey Jack and more recently Juustoleipa cheese, a traditional cheese of Finland. He acquired master cheese maker status in 2002 after completing studies and additional cheese making training at the Center for Dairy Research in the Department of Food Science. Walt's commitment to quality cheese making is the reason Babcock Hall cheese is among the best cheese made in Wisconsin.

Babcock Hall Super Premium Ice Cream - The Babcock Hall Dairy Plant started offering a line of super premium ice cream this fall. The product was developed by Department of Food Science faculty and staff and is designed to satisfy the tastes of consumers seeking a high end frozen dessert treat. Flavors presently available are Vanilla Supreme, Chocolate Supreme, Cherries Jubilee and Badger Brownie Blast. Additional new flavors will be available in the future on a rotating basis. The traditional line of premium Babcock Hall ice cream flavors remains unchanged.

The latest Food Science Newsletter is available on-line.

We would like to congratulate our UW-Madison College Bowl team on placing third in the IFT college bowl Contest in Las Vegas on July 14th. In the double elimination contest, our team defeated Rutgers in the first round, lost to Minnesota in the second round, beat Rutgers again in the third round and then lost to UC-Davis in a very tight contest in the fourth round. Minnesota placed first in the contest and UC-Davis came in second. Members of our college bowl team were: Ritu Mishra, Sandhya Sridhar, Dierde Titel, and Marcell Salonga.

The UW Food Product Development team competed as one of the six finalist teams for the 2004 IFT Product Development Contest in Las Vegas. The team members were: Chinthu Udayarajan (Chair), Rachel Prososki, Andrea Cisneros-Esteves, Mateo Budinich, Bilal Dosti, Hang Xiao, Natalia Kubantseva, Poppy Indrawati, Akshay Arora, Ritu Mishra and Sandhya Sridhar. The winner of the 2004 contest was Rutgers.

Prof. Rich Hartel received the IFT 2004 Research and development award at the Las Vegas meeting. Hartel was chosen for the award in recognition of the excellence of his research on confectionary ingredients and crystallization phenomena in foods.

The 42nd Resident Course in Confectionary Technology, co-sponsored by the National Confectioner's association, was held on July 26-August 6. Rich Hartel directs this course.

UW-Madison had 2 winners in the ADSA Dairy Foods Graduate Student Paper contest this week. Seamus O'Mahony took first place with paper on Cheddar cheese ripening and Won-Jae Lee took second place with a paper on yogurt. Both are students of John Lucey.

Scott Rankin received the 2004 ADSA Foundation Scholar award; this award recognizes young scholars that have been identified as potential leaders for the dairy industry in terms of research and education. Rankin's award recognizes the excellence of his extension program and research contributions, both at UW-Madison and at University of Maryland.

A retreat was held on June 3 and 4 at the West Madison Research Station on the topic of our undergraduate program. Faculty and staff from Food Science attended as well as colleagues from Nutritional Science, Animal Sciences, Food Research Institute, and Bob Ray from CALS academic student affairs. The retreat reviewed existing courses, discussed critical skills required for our students and developed strategies to modify and improve the curriculum.

Professors Lindsay and Chu (emeritus Professor of Food Microbiology and Toxicology and of Food Science) named as Highly Cited Researchers. ISI identified the 218 most cited and influential researchers worldwide in the agricultural sciences in the period 1981 to 2004. Emeritus professors Olson and Marth are included in the original list of 112 researchers in this field.

The WALSAA Express published by CALS had a news item on the success of our Food Science students in winning the Almond Innovations Product Development contest earlier in the year.

Congratulations to Dr. Doug Hyslop for winning the 2003-2004 UW-Madison Food Science Club Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award. This annual award was presented to Doug at the Wine and Cheese Social held on April 22.

Congratulations to Rich Hartel who has been selected as a UW-Madison Teaching Academy Fellow. The UW-Madison Teaching Academy is made up of about 120 fellows from departments and programs throughout the university. The UW-Madison Teaching Academy aims to promote effective education by encouraging innovation, experimentation, and dialogue about teaching and learning. It is composed of faculty members and instructional staff who provide leadership to strengthen undergraduate, graduate, and outreach teaching and learning at the UW-Madison.

More good news from our students. Badgers put up a tremendous performance to pull off a third consecutive Midwestern College Bowl victory. The competition was held at Purdue University this weekend. The six teams that participated in the competition were: Ohio State, Michigan State, Purdue University, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, University of Wisconsin-River Falls and UW-Madison. The winning team members for UW-Madison were: Ritu Mishra, Sandhya Sridhar, Marcell Salonga, Deirdre Titel and Anupama Dattatreya. The road to finals included victories over Michigan (34-12), UW-River Falls (26-12) and twin matches with Ohio State (22-4 and 28-16). The victory in the Midwestern region also qualifies the team to defend their national title in the forthcoming annual meeting of IFT at Las Vegas in July. Akshay Arora was the Chair of the College Bowl Team.

In the CALS Science Report 2004-2005 there were several features about food science faculty and students. Some the research going on in Kirk Parkin's lab about how vegetables may help fight cancer was featured. Parkin's graduate student Brad Bolling was photographed as his project involves bioassays from greens beans. Visiting exchange student Mara Gomez from Monterrey Tec in Mexico was featured. Mara did a research project on cheese texture in John Lucey's lab while on campus for the fall semester. Food Science graduate Katie Becker, who worked in Steve Ingham's lab, was featured in a section about recent graduates from CALS.

Congratulations to the UW Food Product Development team which has been selected as one of the six finalist teams for the 2004 IFT Product Development Contest in Las Vegas. Last year's winner get the chance to defend their title. The team members are: Chinthu Udayarajan (Chair), Rachel Prososki, Andrea Cisneros-Esteves, Mateo Budinich, Bilal Dosti, Hang Xiao, Natalia Kubantseva, Poppy Indrawati, Akshay Arora, Ritu Mishra and Sandhya Sridhar.

Congratulations to Rich Hartel who will be awarded the 2004 IFT Research and Development Award at the IFT Meeting in Las Vegas in July. This award recognizes an IFT member who has made a recent, significant research and development contribution to the understanding of food science, food technology, or nutrition. Hartel works extensively on crystallization in foods such as ice cream.

Vaughan Crow, Principal Research Scientist, at Fonterra (previously the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute) in New Zealand visited the department on March 29. Vaughan also presented a seminar on Cheese Ripening Research in the New Fonterra Structure.

Professor Joe M. Regenstein of the Institute of Food Science, Cornell University, gave the Halpin Lecture on How Supermarkets and Chain Restaurants Propose to Deal with Animal Welfare at the Animal Sciences Building, February 11. Dr. Regenstein is a Visiting Professor with the Department of Food Science and is often on campus.

The annual Babcock Associates meeting was held in February and industry personnel (many of them alumni) joined faculty for a range of discussions and presentations.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Food Science Department has been notified that their Student Food Product Development Team has won the Grand Prize in the 2nd Annual Almond Innovations Contest, sponsored by the Almond Board of California. The UW-Madison team developed a nutritious almond snack chip, "Almond Cravers" to win the contest over 26 other college teams. "Almond Cravers" were produced in two flavors: cinnamon and smoked flavor. The team will receive a $5000 cash prize, plus travel to and accommodations at the Institute of Food Technologists' Food Expo in Las Vegas in July 2004. The Wisconsin team members included: Chinthu Udayarajan (Chair), Natalia Kubantseva, Rachel Ann Prososki, Sandhya Sridhar, Ritu Mishra, Andrea Estevez, Akshay Arora, Bilal Dosti, Hang Xiao, Mateo Budinich, and Poppy Indirawati. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Food Science Club has been active in food product development contests over the past eight years. This is the fourth national award for UW-Madison teams in the past 5 years.

Emeritus Professor Elmer Marth received the National Cheese Institute (NCI) Laureate Award for 2004. At the 2004 Dairy Forum in Boca Raton, Fla, Elmer was honored for his lifelong dedication to researching and teaching cheese safety. The NCI Laureate Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the development and growth of the dairy industry. Throughout his career, he has authored or co-authored more than 660 scientific publications, including the books Applied Dairy Microbiology, Dairy Foods Safety and Listeria, Listeriosis and Food Safety.