Official Post-Show Coverage

The Institute of Food Technologists recognized 12 people and one company for outstanding achievements at the Opening Event of the 2002 IFT Annual Meeting in June.

Bill Helferich, a professor in the Dept. of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois, received the 2002 Babcock-Hart Award, which honors an IFT member for improving public health through nutrition research.

Helferich has had a distinguished career in nutrition, toxicology, food safety, and public health. His career has spanned government (at the Food and Drug Administration), industry (at Baxter International), and academia (at Michigan State University and the University of Illinois).

His career is distinguished by his ability to utilize state-of-the-art basic science techniques to address practical problems in both food science and nutrition. He conducted research on aflatoxins in food animals and the transmission of the potent carcinogen through the food chain. While on the faculty at Michigan State University, he investigated approaches to reducing animal fat and increasing lean mass in pigs. His research focused on mechanisms regulating muscle accretion in response to exogenous agents such as porcine growth hormone and beta-adrenergic agonists. His research demonstrated that these agents must alter body composition by different mechanisms.

Helferich’s research focus over the last six years has been on the role of the soy phytoestrogen, genistein, in the growth of human breast cancer cells in vivo and in vitro.  

Elizabeth Larmond, retired Director of the Industry Services Division of the Canadian Grain Commission, received the 2002 Calvert L. Willey Award in recognition of her meritorious and imaginative service to IFT since joining in 1969.

She was a founding member of the Sensory Evaluation Division and served on the Executive Committee from 1972 to 1974 before serving as Chair from 1974 to 1975. One of the reasons the Sensory Evaluation Division has flourished is because of the excellent organizational framework Larmond helped establish to conduct business, a framework that other divisions have expanded on. She also chaired a division meeting in Ottawa which resulted in establishing a definition of sensory evaluation that is now commonly reproduced in textbooks and used in lectures.

From 1992 to 1995, Larmond served on the IFT Executive Committee as an elected Membership Representative. One of her largest contributions was a set of guidelines she put together for preparing material for Executive Committee action or decision.

Larmond has served as Chair of the Annual Meeting Committee, the Task Force on Strategic Alliances, the Committee for Global Interests, and the Awards Committee. She has also served as Executive Committee Liaison to the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology. She has served as a member of the Task Force on Implementation of Governance, ad hoc IUFoST Steering Committee, Committee on Constitution and By-Laws, and Committee on Publications Policy. She was a President-Elect nominee in 1996–97, 1998–99, and 2001–02. She served on the Board of Editors for the Journal of Food Science from 1974 to 1977 and was elected an IFT Fellow in 1989.

Larmond is also a Past President of the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology.

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J. Ralph Blanchfield, international consultant and Adjunct Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University, is 2002 recipient of the Carl R. Fellers Award and the first non-U.S. recipient. This award is intended to honor individual members of IFT and Phi Tau Sigma who have served and brought honor and recognition to the profession of food science and technology. 

With 34 years in the food industry and 22 years as consultant, Blanchfield has worked on many food products and processing technologies involving research, product/process development, analysis, quality assurance, food safety,food hygiene, production, labeling, and food legislation.

Blanchfield has been editor and part author of the U.K.-based Institute of Food Science and Technology’s (IFST) Good Manufacturing Practice Guide, the book Food Control in Action, and, in 2000, Food Labeling, the first definitive book on the subject He has taken part in many interviews and debates on TV, radio, and the Internet, and in 1996, received the first Promed-Mail Award for Excellence in Outbreak Reporting, “in recognition of his outstanding reporting of the BSE/CJD crisis.” is current scientific and public focus areas are bovine spongiform encephalopathy, biotechnology, allergens, labeling, and public understanding of science.

In 1962, Blanchfield helped found IFST, where he served as President in 1979 and 1980. In 1964, he joined IFT and its British Section, and his professional and public activities have since then focused on IFT, IFST, and the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST). He was instigator and principal architect of the 1994 IFT/IFST Cooperating Societies Agreement. 

Elected a Fellow of IFT in 1980, Blanchfield has served on two IFT task forces and is 2001–02 Chair of IFT’s Committee for Global Interests. He has served the IFT British Section for many years in various capacities, including Chair and Councilor.

In 1997, he was honored by Queen Elizabeth II with an MBE “for scientific services to the food industry” and was also the first recipient of IFST’s Mounfield Award for “an outstanding contribution to the profession of food science and technology.”

Carol Cooper, Advising Associate and Librarian, Dept. of Food Science and Technology, University of California, Davis, received the 2002 Elizabeth Fleming Stier Award, which honors an IFT member for pursuit of humanitarian ideals and unselfish dedication that has resulted in significant contributions to the well-being of the food industry, academia, students, or the general public.

Cooper’s dedication to her job and her enthusiastic interactions with faculty, students, alumni, industry, and the general public far exceed her position description. For more than 25 years, she has had a significant positive influence on many students, playing a major role in their smooth transitions to productive careers as food industry professionals.

After earning a B.S. in microbiology at UC Davis, she worked as a packaging technologist for Safeway Stores. Two years later, she returned to the university as Editor at the Packaging Library, a position she held for 12 years. She was also Editor-in-Chief of Current Packaging Abstracts, a twice-monthly publication. She moved from the Packaging Library to become the department librarian and worked zealously to expand her expertise in literature searching. These skills helped the faculty in their research programs, as well as graduate and undergraduate students.

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She also mentors many students and alumni seeking career advice. In 1989, she was awarded a UC Davis Staff Assembly Citation for Excellence for her notable department contributions and service to students. In the mid-1990s, she also became a food science undergraduate advising associate. She has received the student-nominated Walker Award, given to the outstanding staff advisor in the college. She was also the first recipient of the UC Davis Outstanding Staff Advisor Award, a campus-wide award administered by students in recognition of knowledge, care, and commitment in providing quality advising to students.

An active member of the Northern California Section, Cooper serves on its Executive Committee and was named the section’s Outstanding Member of the Year in 1995.

Avure Technologies Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Flow International Corp., is the recipient of the 2002 Food Technology Industrial Achievement Award for its Fresher Under Pressure® high-pressure processing technology. The award honors the developers of an outstanding food process or product that represents a significant advancement in the application of food science and technology to food production, and which has been successfully applied in actual commercial operation for at least six months but no more than seven years.

IFT is recognizing Avure for its development and commercialization of high-hydrostatic-pressure processing of foods. High-pressure processing (HPP) is a food quality and safety technology that delivers what consumers and food processors have been demanding for years—a safer product that offers extended shelf life without thermal or chemical degradation of organoleptic and nutritional properties of food.

Avure’s QFP 215L-600 Fresher Under Pressure high-pressure batch processing unit can pressurize packaged foods up to 87,000 psi. HPP technology increases the safety and shelf life of fresh and ready-to-eat foods without the use of heat, chemicals, or irradiation.

Fresher Under Pressure systems are working for the world’s leading food producers. Avure is working with the Army and leading food companies to extend the use of HPP to shelf-stable, low-acid foods. Avure Technologies is based in Kent, Wash., and also has manufacturing facilities elsewhere in the U.S. and Sweden.

Laurence Bell, Consultant, Pacific Grove, Calif., is the recipient of the 2002 Industrial Scientist Award, established to recognize an IFT member industrial scientist who has made a major technical contribution to the advancement of the food industry.

More than any other individual over the past 20 years, Bell has been responsible for the development and emergence of the fresh-cut produce industry. He was the lead technical professional for TransFRESH Corp. in the 1980s and 1990s. Whirlpool Corp. formed TransFRESH in the mid-1960s to further develop the company’s award-winning modified and controlled atmosphere technology for the storage of produce. Whirlpool received the 1964 IFT Food Technology Industrial Achievement Award for the early commercial development of the technology. TransFRESH is a market leader in the application of modified and controlled atmospheres for transporting and packaging fresh perishables.

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Bell later served as Chief Technical Officer for Fresh Express Inc., the pioneer and market leader in packaged salads. He built upon this technology base and developed several new patents for processing and packaging fresh-cut vegetables. He pioneered the development of modified-atmosphere packaging for respiring plant perishables, which allowed retail packaged salads to become a safe and viable reality. His insights also enabled him to develop the technical foundation to commercialize the shipment of other fresh perishables including fresh salmon.

From his work emerged a unique discipline for commercializing economically viable, food-safe, high-quality, cut and packaged, value-added produce.

Throughout this period of continuing advancements, he found time to actively participate in IFT activities and share his knowledge with professional colleagues in numerous conferences and publications. He also received the IFT Food Packaging Division’s Riester-Davis Award in 1998 for his exceptional contributions to the field.

James H. Moy, Professor, Dept. of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa, is the recipient of the 2002 International Award. The award is given for promoting better international understanding of food science and the practical transfer of technology to a developing nation or to an economically depressed area in a developed nation.

For almost four decades, Moy has devoted his time to improving food quality, food safety, and the world food supply through his work on food engineering, processing, and irradiation. He has succeeded in communicating the intricacies of food irradiation not only to fellow food scientists but also to governments, international agencies, and consumers.

Since the early 1970s, Moy has shared his knowledge and experience in food irradiation with colleagues through participating in foreign missions, training researchers, sharing information at international meetings, and transferring technical information to an economically depressed area in a developing country.

He has helped colleagues in many countries advance their knowledge and applications of food irradiation. He organized and chaired two international conferences in Honolulu in 1983 and 1997 on irradiation disinfestation of food and agricultural products. He was designated an expert in food irradiation by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1984.

Moy received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and worked for Esso Research and Engineering Company and the Lipton Company in New Jersey for three years before earning a Ph.D. in food science from Rutgers. He joined IFT in 1962 and has been active in the Hawaii Section, serving as Secretary, Treasurer, Program Chair, Chair (1976 and 2000), Councilor, and Alternate Councilor. He was elected an IFT Fellow in 1993.

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Jozef L. Kokini, Professor II Food Engineering, Chair/Director, Dept. of Food Science/Center for Advanced Food Technology, Rutgers University, received the 2002 Marcel Loncin Research Prize, which honors and provides research funding for an IFT member or nonmember scientist or engineer conducting basic chemistry/physics/engineering research applied to food processing and improvement of food quality.

Established in 1994, the award is administered through the IFT Foundation and is given every two years. The proposal must show potential cross-fertilization and cooperation among academia, the food industry, and government organizations where possible. The recipient must present the results of the research at the IFT Annual Meeting the third year after receiving the prize.

Kokini’s research focuses on the simulation and validation of mixing efficiency in batch and continuous dough mixers. Recognizing that the mixing of highly viscoelastic materials such as wheat flour dough is key to food processing, Kokini’s research will use numerical simulation validated with Laser Doppler velocimetry measurements to obtain velocity profiles, which in turn are converted into metrics of mixing efficiency. The results will enable design and optimization of batch and continuous mixing of viscoelastic flour doughs.

The research will be done in three phases. In Phase I, Kokini and his colleagues will model the flow of viscoelastic fluids in mixer geometries that are used in dough mixing. In Phase II, the numerical simulation results will be experimentally verified using LDA with the transparent food materials, as well as color marking and particle tracking techniques such as RTD and dead-stop experiments for the opaque dough materials. Phase III will use the simulations to predict the geometrical configuration and processing parameters for the continuous mixer that produces a mixed wheat flour/water dough equivalent to that obtained from the batch mixer, using mixing efficiency as the design parameters.

Kokini has published over 150 papers and has received a number of awards, including IFT’s Samuel Cate Prescott Award (1986), IFT Minnesota Section’s Harold Macy Award (2000), and AACC’s Scott Blair Award (1996) and C.W. Brabender Award (2002). He was also elected an IFT Fellow in 2000.

Daniel F. Farkas, Professor Emeritus, Food Science & Technology Dept., Oregon State University, received the 2002 Nicholas Appert Award, IFT’s highest honor, which recognizes an individual for preeminence in and contributions to the field of food technology.

A 50-year member of IFT, Farkas has been actively involved with cutting-edge food technologies throughout his career. Working in government, academia, and industry, he has become recognized as one of the visionaries who sees the future and acts on it using his scientific and technical knowledge and imagination.

He was the first to initiate research and development work to commercialize the use of ultra-high hydrostatic pressure for nonthermal food preservation in a university setting in 1982 and has been a leader in this field ever since. He expanded the use of high pressure from microbial inactivation to overall food quality and functionality.

His work on radiation dosimetry for the military when he worked at the Quartermaster Food and Container Institute (predecessor of the U.S. Army Natick Laboratories) was regarded as groundbreaking. While at Whirlpool Corp., he was a vital member of the food research team that pioneered the application of controlled-atmosphere food preservation through novel equipment to a wide variety of foods. This work contributed to the corporation receiving the IFT Food Technology Industrial Achievement Award in 1964. This technology is the basis for the rapidly growing fresh-cut produce and modified-atmosphere-packaged food business today.

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At the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Western Regional Research Laboratories, he developed the innovative helical pump continuous thermal process system for heat sterilization of packaged foods. He provided pioneering contributions to the field of thermal processing of foods, especially blanching, drying, and extraction.

As a consultant to Mead Packaging, Farkas helped move the Crosscheck high-acid fluid food aseptic packaging system from laboratory into semi-commercial pilot plant status on its way to ultimate commercialization. As Vice President of Process Research and Development at Campbell Soup Co., he was active in the company’s entry into aseptic packaging of soups in barrier plastic cups and into retorted multilayer barrier plastic containers. He has been on the faculty of Cornell University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Delaware, and Oregon State University, sometimes serving as Dept. Head.

He chaired the first IFT Food Engineering Division Bernard E. Proctor Lecture committee and serves on the committee. He is a Fellow of IFT and has been an active member of the Northeast, Western New York, Philadelphia, Northern California, and Oregon Sections, and the Engineering and Nonthermal Processing Divisions. He has served as Annual Meeting Program Chair and was intensively involved in the recent FDA-IFT contract on Kinetics of Microbial Inactivation for Alternative Food Processing Technologies.

Recognized as a key expert in the field of nonthermal preservation of foods, he helped in the formation of IFT’s newest division, the Nonthermal Processing Division.

Clair L. Hicks, Professor, University of Kentucky, received the 2002 Research & Development Award, which recognizes a member who has made a recent, significant research and development contribution to the understanding of food science, food technology, or nutrition.

Hicks has worked on solving culture agglutination problems for the past 10 years. His research significantly reduces the culture agglutination problems encountered by the cottage cheese industry. He conducted research on bulk starters, looking for methods whereby the culture in the bulk starter would be present as single or paired cells. These studies showed that when homogenized bulk starter was added to homogenized skim milk, culture agglutination could be controlled when using severely agglutinating cultures.

Hicks then turned his research focus to the development of blocker peptides that could be used in culture media formulations. In 1996, he began to work to clarify the mechanism that causes agglutination of culture cells and to develop a culture medium containing a peptide blocker.

His later studies showed that two or more bridging components were necessary to complete the bridging process that caused culture agglutination. His recent research suggests that whey peptides as small as 1,000-kDa are as effective in reducing culture agglutination as 10,000-kDa peptides. Culture media, both an internally pH controlled medium and a phosphate medium, prepared with 1,000-kDa peptides were effective in reducing culture agglutination in bulk starters. He also noted that culture grown in media containing whey peptides were less sensitive to bacteriophage attack.

Kathryn Boor, Associate Professor, Food Science Dept., Cornell University, received the 2002 Samuel Cate Prescott Award for her research on microbiological food safety and quality.

The award is given to an IFT member who is less than 36 years of age or has received his or her highest degree within the previous 10 years and has demonstrated outstanding ability in food science research.

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Since joining the Cornell faculty in 1994, Boor has established an internationally recognized research program in microbiological food safety and quality. The program focuses on identifying and modifying factors that affect the presence and persistence of spoilage and pathogenic organisms in food products intended for human consumption. It integrates the tools of molecular biology and phenotypic microbiology to explore factors linking the ability of bacteria to survive under various conditions and to rapidly identify and track spoilage and pathogenic bacteria in food systems.

The techniques for rapid bacterial identification and tracking that have been developed and applied in her program have contributed to reducing the number of fatalities in a nationwide outbreak of foodborne listeriosis and have improved capabilities for extending processed product shelf life, reducing spoilage, and ensuring product safety. The long-term objective of her research and education program is to create an integrated and interactive network of university, regulatory agency, and food industry professionals and institutions for improving food safety and quality.

Boor currently serves as Director of the university’s Food Safety Laboratory and the Milk Quality Improvement Program.

She has been an active member of IFT since 1984 and served on the IFT Extension Division National Executive Board from 1996 to 1998.

Chi-Tang Ho, Professor of Food Chemistry, Rutgers University, received the 2002 Steven S. Chang Award, which recognizes a member who has made significant contributions to lipid or flavor science.

Ho is internationally recognized for his research on lipid-generated and Maillard-processed flavors. He identified and delineated mechanisms for the formation of compounds responsible for the flavors of roasted, fried, and extruded foods. He has used his research and knowledge in Maillard process flavor to help the food industry improve the flavor of processed foods such as cereals, peanut butter, chicken soup, and roasted coffee through flavor precursor enrichment and process optimization. His findings have led to new technology used by numerous companies for product development and process improvement. Several products in the marketplace are partly the result of technology developed in Ho’s laboratory.

His research has involved three major areas in flavor chemistry: Identification of specific compounds in processed foods; advancing the understanding of Maillard chemistry, and the search for natural antioxidants for flavor stability improvement.

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His research on the role of cysteine and cystine in Maillard reactions led to the identification of many sulfur-containing compounds with extremely low aroma thresholds important to the flavor of meat products. He was the first to demonstrate the importance of protein deamidation to flavor development in glutamine and asparagine-rich foods. He is also one of the pioneers in demonstrating the effect of water activity and pH on Maillard flavor generation.

His research on natural antioxidant discovery led to the identification of many novel compounds in rosemary, sage, thyme, and tea that have strong antioxidative and anticarcinogenic properties. In rosemary, he identified a new compound called rosmariquinone which is the first quinone-type antioxidant found in nature.

S. Suzanne Nielsen, Professor of Food Science, Purdue University, received the 2002 William V. Cruess Award, which honors a member who has achieved excellence in teaching food science and technology.

Nielsen’s commitment to her students is reflected in her tireless efforts to provide students with the skills to interpret and understand chemical/analytical methods and analyses. The courses she teaches are considered by students to be among the most difficult, but because of her abilities as an educator, students also consider her courses to be among the most rewarding in their college careers. Her students consistently describe her as “one of the best” instructors.

Nielsen brings the food industry into the classroom and prepares students for lifelong learning. Nielsen has received the Purdue Food Science Department Outstanding Instructor Award for nine of the past 18 years. The texts she has edited or prepared—Introduction to the Chemical Analysis of Foods and Food Analysis, 2^nd Edition—have received excellent reviews and have been widely adopted by most of the food science programs in the U.S. and Canada and are also used throughout the world.

An active advisor, Nielsen often talks with incoming freshmen and graduate students. She also assists seniors as they prepare for job interviews or graduate school applications. As a student, she received several IFT scholarships and fellowships. She has been Chair of IFT’s Indiana Section and has served on the IFT Constitution & By-Laws Committee, Expert Panel, Research Committee, and Executive Committee. She has also served on and chaired several task forces. She was elected an IFT Fellow in 2000.

Deadline for receipt of nominations for 2003 Achievement Awards is December 1, 2002. Nomination forms are available from Patti Pagliuco, Institute of Food Technologists, 525 W. Van Buren, Suite 1000, Chicago, IL 60607 (e-mail [email protected]) or via the IFT Web site at www.ift.org/awards/descriptions.shtml.