It may look like a kitchen but, instead of breakfast, the University of Southern Queensland’s food science facilities are allowing researchers to cook up the latest advances in this growth sector.
Researchers explore chemistry, physical analysis, processing, and safety, to inform food and beverage product development with an array of equipment, including a freeze dryer which can be used both for the preservation of food materials (while minimising nutrient degradation) and to change food structure in order to make extracts and a 3D food printer for producing tailor-made products.
Alongside a range of pilot processing equipment and analytical instruments, the facilities include standard kitchen processing equipment (juicers, mixers, microwaves and more) for product development purposes.
Food Laboratory features:
- Sensory booths for the evaluation of food products concepts and packaging, as well as beverage product assessment.
- Extraction vessel to extract bio-based molecules from food and agricultural sources using ‘clean’ solvents.
- HTST/UHT processing unit for rapid heat treatment of beverage-based products.
- Disc bowl centrifuge for separation of fats and water-based solutions.
- Tubular heat exchanger to optimise thermal processing of liquid food products.
- Brix meter.
- Brookfield Viscometer.
