Handbook

Processing foods at industrial scale requires engineers and food technologists to integrate and apply knowledge from a range of fields. Consider the processing of milk for sale, food safety is assured and consistent consumer experience is achieved through the processes of pasteurisation and homogenisation before packaging. Managing these operations requires you to apply the basic principles of fluid flow and heat transfer, along with an understanding of microbiology. While optimising evaporation and drying in the production of milk powder will require you to apply the principles of material and energy balances and mass transfer.

In this course you will learn the basic physical and engineering principles required to understand the processing of foods at industrial scale. You will be equipped with the basic knowledge to work as a food engineer in food manufacturing companies. The course concentrates on the following topics:

1. Mass and energy balances, including basic principles of thermodynamics, to analyse processing unit operations,
2. Fluid flow, to understand the flowing characteristics of liquid foods,
3. Heat transfer, to understand the cooling and heating of food for preservation,
4. Thermal processing, to understand the effect of temperature on the inactivation of microorganisms for food preservation,
5. Mass transfer, to understand the movement of mass due to gradients of concentration,
6. Particles in foods, as many food ingredients are in the form of particles, and
7. Mixing, which is a fundamental operation for making foods.