Food Science

Master cheese maker Gary Grossen was the subject of feature article in CALS News.

Dairy Plant master cheese maker Gary Grossen has had a string of victories at International, National, and State competitions this year. In March his Gouda cheese was ranked eighth in the world at the World Championship Cheese Contest surpassing twelve Gouda cheeses from the Netherlands. Awards were also received at the World Dairy Expo, the Wisconsin State Fair and two Wisconsin County fairs. Gary was awarded Grand Champion Cheese Maker at Monroe Cheese Days where his Gouda cheese received a score of 99.73. Visitors can purchase Gouda cheese and a variety of other cheeses at the Babcock Hall Dairy Store or order the Champion Award Winner cheese box on line at the Dairy Store web site.

The Food Science undergraduate program continues to grow with 71 students at this time and other 17 students in the Food Engineering program that is jointly operated with Biological Systems Engineering. The UW-Madison food science undergraduate program is one of the largest in the US.

Undergraduate research in the food science department was featured on the front cover of the September 20th issue of the Wisconsin Week. Laura Shumow and Peter Weber's experiences in various undergraduate labs were described along with the reasons why they selected food science as their major.

Monica Theis and dietetics students were also featured in the September 20th issue of Wisconsin Week. The story discussed Monica's efforts to increase the hands-on experience of dietetics students in the administration and management of on-site food service operations. The dietetics program is operated through nutritional sciences but the food science department provides all the food related coursework.

Babcock Hall is creating a new ice cream flavor for Homecoming. Taking advantage of this year's theme, "Bucky Goes to Camp ....Randall" Babcock Hall Dairy Plant has created Back for S'more, a combination of chocolate chunks, marshmallow swirl, and graham crackers in a chocolate base. It will be the featured flavor for September and October.

The Wisconsin Week featured a story on the award winning sheep milk cheese that was developed by Bill Wendorff and John Jaeggi. At the annual American Cheese Society competition in July the aged sheep milk cheese named Dante took top honors in its class. UW-Madison has the only dairy sheep research program in North America.

The Department of Food Science in association with CALS and the University of Wisconsin Foundation hosted a reception and dinner August 10 to celebrate Professor Daryl Lund's achievements and contributions to UW-Madison for over 40 years. Recently, Daryl and Dawn Lund have made deferred gifts to support a chair professorship in the Department of Food Science and to the Food Science Excellence Fund. These events were in appreciation and acknowledgement of these generous gifts, and to celebrate Daryl's achievements and other contributions to our department.

An Assessment Retreat was held on August 11th at the West Madison Research Station. Kirby Hakes (Purdue University) and Dianne Gardner (Illinois State University) facilitated this one-day retreat with faculty and staff and the focus was on using learning outcomes for course and program assessments.

Good news, the Dean has officially approved our Food Chemist position request and has authorized us to initiate a search and fill the position effective with the start date of September 2007. The position will be and academic year (C-basis) appointment at the Assistant/associate Professor level with 60% research and 40% teaching responsibilities. Kirk Parkin is the chair of the search committee.

Molly Bjork left the Food Science on July 7 to start a position at the Law School Library. We wish her all the best in the future.

International recognition for agricultural science at UW-Madison. In the rankings of international Agricultural Sciences institutions between 1996-2006, UW-Madison was ranked joint second with Cornell University on citation impact. This analysis was done by Science Watch (July/August 2006 issue).

The annual Food Science Department Retreat was held on Friday, June 9 at the West Madison Agricultural Research Station. This retreat was devoted to undergraduate curriculum. The faculty and staff of the Department of Food Science committed to moving forward with: (a) a revised curriculum with key learning outcomes in each defined course, (b) a roadmap(s) for the revised curriculum which accommodates the interests of our majors in food business and product development/quality assurance, acknowledges the needs of other programs such as food engineering, and provides appropriate preparation for students planning to attend graduate school (c) teaching assignments established for each course/lab and (d) a timeline and process for implementing a new curriculum to be phased in beginning August 2006.

Good news: Rachel Prososki will be receiving the Campbell IFT Graduate Student Leadership Award at the IFT meeting in Orlando, FL. Rachel has done an outstanding job of coordinating our winning product development teams over the past year or two and she is coordinating the IFTSA national product development contest this year. We congratulate Rachel for this outstanding national award. Sofia Erazo-Castrejon came third in the Dairy Foods poster competition. Sofia's poster presentation was entitled Removal of Residual Annatto Pigments from Whey by Complexation with Chitosan was one of five finalist in the poster competition at the IFT meeting. Sivaraj Kaliappan participated in the Dairy Division Manfred Kroger Graduate Oral Presentation Competition by presenting his work entitled Influence of Emulsifying Salt Mixtures on the Physiochemical Properties of Casein Micelles at the IFT meeting. He also was a finalist in the Graduate Research Paper competition - Dairy Food Division at the ADSA and presented his paper entitled Impact of Mixtures of Emulsifying Salts on the Properties of Process Cheese. Ciara Brickley placed third in the student paper competition in the Dairy Foods Section at the ADSA in Minneapolis. Her research topic was on Improving the Texture of Nonfat Processed Cheese for use in Baking Applications.

Sad news: Emeritus Professor Elmer H. Marth, age 78, died on Monday June 19, 2006, at the University Hospital Madison. A Memorial Service was held at 2 p.m. on Friday, June 23, 2006. He was born on a dairy farm near Jackson, Wis., on Sept. 11, 1927, the son of William F. and Irma A. (Bublitz) Marth. He was baptized and later confirmed at Emanuel Lutheran Church near Jackson, a congregation founded in 1847 by Pomeranian immigrants. He graduated from West Bend High School in 1944. While in high school and for several years afterward, Elmer was active in the Future Farmers of America (FFA). In 1946, the National FFA honored him with its highest award, the American Farmer Degree, given in recognition of his excellent contributions to agriculture.

In the fall of 1944, Elmer enrolled at UW-Madison and, after completing his freshman year, returned to the home farm where he remained until the fall of 1947, when he came back to UW-Madison where he earned his B.S. (1950) and Ph. D. (1954) degrees, all in bacteriology with an emphasis on food/dairy bacteriology. Research he completed for his Ph. D. degree provided the scientific basis for regulatory approval of the then new method-pipeline milker and bulk milk cooling tank-for producing milk on the farm, a method, with some modifications, that is still used today. Dr. Marth was appointed as project associate (1954-55) and then instructor (1955-1957) in bacteriology. In both positions, he taught bacteriology to undergraduate and farm short course students and did post-doctoral research on the bacteriology of concentrated milk products.

On Aug. 10, 1957, at Calvary Lutheran Chapel in Madison, he married Phyllis E. Menge, a medical technician and native of Fall Creek. A few weeks later the newlyweds moved to Deerfield, Ill., where Elmer worked in the Research and Development Division of Kraft Foods in nearby Glenview, Ill. Elmer rose through the ranks at Kraft Foods and in 1966 was named associate manager of the Microbiology Laboratory. Elmer returned to UW-Madison in 1966 as associate professor of food science with joint appointments in bacteriology and food microbiology and toxicology. Dr. Marth was promoted to professor in 1971 and upon retirement in 1990, was named emeritus professor.

Dr. Marth also served as editor of the Journal of Food Protection from 1967 to 1987. It was largely through his efforts and leadership that the journal became the leading medium, world-wide, for publication of papers dealing with food safety. When major outbreaks of food borne illness occurred in the United States, Marth spent countless hours on the telephone providing sound information to concerned persons in the industry and to representatives of the media. Dr. Marth was the major professor for 32 students who received the M.S. degree and also for 32 students who earned the Ph. D. degree. Marth also supervised 17 post-doctoral researchers who worked in his laboratory for periods ranging from three months to several years.

During his career, Marth was the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of more than 660 scientific publications, including research papers, review papers, books, chapters in books, patents, and abstracts of papers given at meetings of professional organizations. His research papers and review papers appeared in about 50 domestic and foreign scientific journals. Although he was pleased with all his publications, he was particularly pleased with the book, Milk, Microbes and Marth: An Autobiography, published in 2001. Marth was a member of numerous professional organizations and served on several academic committees. From 1968 to 1985 he was a member (chairman 1972-1978) of the technical committee of the American Public Health Association that supervised the preparation of the 13th, 14th and 15th editions of Standard Methods for the Examination of Dairy Products. The excellence of his research and teaching was recognized with many awards from various professional and industrial organizations.

Rani Lucey, wife of John Lucey, and an associate scientist in the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, gave birth to two wonderful girls in St. Mary's Hospital. The girls are named Sonia Niamh and Priyanka Maeve Lucey.

Congratulations to Scott Rankin who was awarded the 2006 DSM Food Specialties award for research on cheese and cultured products at this meeting.

John Lucey’s group hosted a sabbatical visitor, Dr. David Horne, for about 1 month. Dr. Horne recently retired after a career working as a physical chemist at the Scottish Dairy Research Institute at the Hannah (Scotland). While in Madison he presented seminar entitled: What Wallaby Milk Can Tell us About the Structure of Casein Micelles. This is based on his recent research collaboration with groups in New Zealand on the unusual behavior of the proteins in Wallaby milk

Ken Norton has announced plans to retire on May 3rd. He has worked in the dairy plant for over 31 years as a cheese maker, a pasteurizer operator and has operated virtually all dairy processing equipment in the plant. The department wishes him well on his retirement.

On Friday, April 28 from 7:00am to noon, several hundred FFA high school students arrived at Babcock Hall for their annual competition and this is part of the FFA Career Development Event.

The Annual Food Science Department/Food Science Club annual Wine and Cheese Party was held on Friday April 21st. This year's party also included the opportunity for students and staff to network with food science alumni who returned for a focus group earlier in the afternoon. The focus group was to inform the curriculum committee on the key learning outcomes that our graduates need during the first few years of their working careers.

Healthy sTarts

We want to congratulate our Food Product Development team again for placing second in the recent Burrill Business Competition at UW-Madison. The purpose of this competition is to encourage collaboration between cross-disciplines, therefore teams must be comprised of students with science or engineering qualifications as well as business/social science expertise. Each team evaluates the market potential of the technology based product or service, including its potential for sustained profitability, apply or develop the proposed technology, and assess key feasibility issues develop a comprehensive business plan. The Food Science/Business School team took second place in the competition with a business plan for Healthy sTarts, the granola/yogurt snack product, which was the product that won the IFTSA Product Development Contest at the IFT meeting in New Orleans last July. The winning team was composed of: James Jordan - Food Science (Team Captain), Sivaraj Kaliappan - Food Science, Peter Weber - Food Science, Brad Bolling - Food Science, Kristen Blaschek - Food Science, JinJin Zhou - Biol. Syst. Eng., Tom Godfrey - School of Business, Peter Berman - School of Business. This is an outstanding showing for a team from CALS while competing against the software entries from Computer Sciences and medical devices from the College of Engineering.

Robin Connelly was featured in the CALS Science Report 2006-2007 with an article entitled “The physics of making food.” Robin discussed how she loves the challenge of understanding what happens during processes, such as mixing and baking, and using that knowledge to improve the quality, safety and affordability of the foods we eat.

DoIT has informed us that the UWNet wireless network for Babcock Hall is now active. If you have a laptop or other device with wireless capability, you can connect to this wireless network by logging on with your NetID and password.

Great news, we have received the official word from Dean Hogg that he has granted tenure and promotion to Associate Professor to Scott Rankin. Scott will officially become an Associate Professor as of July 1, 2006. We congratulate Scott on his official accomplishment of tenure and removal of the probationary status of his career at UW-Madison.

The second annual Food Service Advisory Council meeting was held on Tuesday, March 14th.

Mark Johnson, a senior scientist in the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research and a lecturer in several Food Science courses, was featured in the Wisconsin week with a story entitled: “Dairy Researcher: A champion of cheese.” Mark is a world-renowned expert in cheese and a popular judge at many cheese contests.

On March 25th the IFTSA Midwest college bowl event was held in Glenview IL. The UW-Madison team of Kristen Blaschek, Peter Weber, Aaron Fuchs, Laura Shurnow and Sofia Erazo-Castrejon (captain) eventually lost in the final to Purdue.

On Thursday March 30 the Food Science Club FSC hosted the second annual Micro-Chef Challenge. In this competition teams compete to create the most delicious appetizer, entree and dessert all in the microwave and all including "the secret ingredient," which this year was cream cheese. The teams were led by Peter Weber and Michelle Tittl and the winner of the closely contested event was Michelle’s team. The final meal is judged by your favorite food science professors.

Master Cheese Maker Gary Grossen received third place in the Hard Sheep’s milk cheese category in the 2006 World Championship contest held at the Monona Terrance Convention Center on March 21-23. Gary also obtained high scores for his two other entries in the contest.

The FSC social event for this month is a Chocolate Valentine's Day spectacular! We will be enrobbing, dipping, decorating and doing anything else you can think of with chocolate. Cookies, nougat, truffles, strawberries and more will be waiting for you. The date is Monday, February 13th at 4:30pm in the pilot plant.

The win by the Food Science product development team in the 2005 Almond Product Innovations contest was featured in this month's Inform magazine (AOCS).

Srinivasan Damodaran was elected chair of the Food Science department and will take office on July 1, 2006. The department wishes to thank Bill Wendorff for his excellent service over the past 5 years and Bill will be remaining on as a professor in the department for several more years.

The annual Babcock Associates meeting was held on 23-24 February.

James Spartz recently joined the classified staff in the Department office and will be the Graduate Admissions Coordinator.

We received a $2500 donation from Ventura Foods, LLC in recognition of McCain Foods winning entry in the The 2005 Spirit of Innovation Award contest for industry product development teams.  McCain Foods winning entry was Latin Latitudes, a Latin-influenced line of appetizers presented in the forms that were suggestive of Asian foods.  McCain Foods USA has decided to donate their prize money to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Food Science Department to help develop future food scientists.  It is a rather interesting twist to have a donation from a winning industry product development team being used to train potential members of our departmental food product development teams.  We certainly appreciate this donation from McCain Foods USA. A story of McCain Foods USA winning entry, Latin Latitudes, is covered in the November 2005 Prepared Foods Magazine, pp. 9-15.

The CALS news website had a story entitled “UW-Madison's Product Development Team Beats the Odds.” This story described the great success our student teams have had over the past number of years.

After three years of great service to the department Vicki Ruchti resigned her position in our Department and she will start work as an accountant in the Medical School on February 13.  The department wishes her all the best in the future.