Simonson co-chairs session at Conference on Food Engineering

Vice President of Technology Development Julie Simonson recently
co-chaired a session at the Conference on Food Engineering with
Dr. Dennis Heldman at the University of Minnesota.

Oct. 22, 2018 — Many food-engineering professionals and students from across the country recently gathered at the University of Minnesota for the 2018 Conference on Food Engineering. One of those professionals was our Vice President of Technology Development Julie Simonson, who helped co-lead a special technical session for guests on the topic of “Research Needs for Food Freezing and Frozen Food Storage.”

“Participating in this conference provided me the opportunity to meet a number of food engineering professors, graduate students and industry professionals,” Julie said. “Many of them are researching or working in frozen-food processing or cold chain management — so we will be able to stay linked with technical advances and perhaps partner with them in the future to improve our freezing processes.”

The conference was hosted by the newly formed Society of Food Engineering, which is a group comprised of experts in the field of food engineering. The conference consisted of three general sessions attended by all guests and 21 focused technical sessions. Presentations throughout the four-day conference focus on identifying priorities in food engineering for the upcoming decade.

Julie co-led the session with Dr. Dennis Heldman, who is a professor in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Ohio State University.

Together, they emphasized the freezing process and frozen-food storage operations are both energy intensive and require improved efficiencies to preserve our natural resources. They also discussed the importance for further research regarding how the removal of thermal energy and long-term storage temperatures impact frozen product quality and shelf-life.