Food and Markets

Location: Medway Campus
Salary: £34,304 to £50,296 per annum
Contract Type: Permanent
Closing Date: Monday 31 January 2022
Interview Date: To be confirmed
Reference: 3003

The Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich is offering an exciting position for a postgraduate in Food Processing to join the team at the new Medway Food Innovation Centre.

The Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich is part of a consortium called Growing Kent and Medway (GK&M), which is led by NIAB EMR and won a £17.8 million UKRI Strength in Places grant. The ambition of GK&M is to develop a world-class agri-food innovation cluster that supports growth in technology-driven horticultural production, food & drink processing, and manufacturing. Besides, NIAB EMR and the University of Greenwich, the other research partners of this world-class consortium include the University of Kent. The industry partners include a range of significant local agri-food companies (APS Produce, Berry Gardens Growers, Chapel Down, Gusbourne Estate, Richard Hochfeld Group, Thanet Earth, Worldwide Fruit); an innovative technology integration business that operates across supply chains (Geku Automation); and a world-leading packaging company (Smurfit Kappa). GK&M is backed by strong civic and business support with partners from the Kent & Medway Economic Partnership and Locate in Kent. GK&M will drive innovation and wealth creation by stimulating a vibrant and collaborative network that enables new and existing food enterprises to develop and thrive. It connects industry with technologists and researchers to co-creatively address the innovation challenges faced by the agri-food sector and its supply chains. Over the 5-year project, a total of £5M has been allocated to a Research and Innovation Fund to support collaborative bids that would typically include commercial and research partners.

As part of the GK&M project, the University of Greenwich is setting up the Medway Food Innovation Centre (MFIC) – a state of art facility to deliver step-changing food R&D solutions for industries through disruptive research as well as excellent training and courses on food product and process development for student cohorts. A core unit of the MFIC is the Food Processing Laboratory (FPL) is MFIC with advanced facilities (twin-screw extruder, drying platform, dry fractionator, sonication, high pressure homogeniser, bioreactor etc.) hitherto not available in the region. Besides preservation and food safety, the aim of food processing is to create products with desirable functional properties and therefore the FPL will supplement a cutting-edge New Product Development facility at MFIC. The food grade FPL would provide the knowledge-based support to innovation challenges of the local food businesses.

With support from the GK&M project team within NRI, the successful candidate will be the operational lead for FPL within MFIC. S(he) will work closely with the MFIC head within University of Greenwich, to deliver relevant food innovation projects/workstreams including those for the GK&M Research and Innovation Fund.

The successful candidate should have proven experience of working in food grade processing lab/pilot (prior industry experience will be advantage) with PhD level or equivalent education in food processing/engineering.

For an informal discussion about the post please contact Andy Frost, Director of Business Development and Partnerships on A.I.Frost@greenwich.ac.uk

Should you have any queries please contact the HR Recruitment Team on hrsr-fes@gre.ac.uk

We are looking for people who can help us deliver our mission of transforming lives through inspired teaching and research, through our values.

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