Team Wins Again

Faculty members and graduate students in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences have been honored a second time for developing a food processing technology. The team won a 2009 Superior Efforts in Technology Transfer Award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) for a novel continuous flow microwave heating process to produce large containers of aseptic, shelf-stable vegetable and fruit purees. Yamco of Snow Hill, N.C., uses the process for sweet potato puree. Earlier this year, the Institute of Food Technologists honored the team with an Industrial Achievement Award.

Team members are Dr. Van-Den Truong, associate professor and ARS research food technologist; Dr. Josip Simunovic, research associate professor; Dr. Ken Swartzel, William Neal Reynolds Professor and director of the Food Systems Leadership Institute; Dr. K.P. Sandeep, professor; Dr. Pablo Coronel, formerly a doctoral student in the department; Gary Cartwright, Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences pilot plant coordinator; Dr. Prabhat Kumar, formerly a doctoral student; Laurie Steed, doctoral student; and Dr. David Parrott of Industrial Microwave Systems of Morrisville, which was a partner in the project.