Anyone know about the “food technology” degree that many universities are offering now?
It has been listed as similar to an Engineering degree, but what exactly is it? Are the courses hard-core math/applied math/engineering stuff? Or is it more ‘softy’ and artsy?
Are they taste testing for four years or what?
I would imagine it’s all about how to design production lines for the food industry. Robotics, industrial controls, hydraulics, electronics, machining, statistics, health, disease, designing cooking processes, canning, packaging, relevant legislation, etc, etc. Someone has to set up the production lines for Cheetos…
First hit on Google for “food technology degree”
http://www.universities.com/On-Campus/Illinois_Institute_Of_Technology_Masters_degree_Food_Technology_and_Processing.html
It’s more science, definitely not artsy. We’ve got a couple of folks here with doctoral degrees in food science and technology.
Telemark’s description nailed it. Think microbiologist, something like that.
The people I work with that have these degrees focus on preservation, packaging, QA, QC, R&D, and so on. They spend a fair amount of time in the lab, etc.
Link to the UC Davis Food Science and Technology page, with their definition.
They seem not to be concentrating on the factory design side of things, from the look of the page.
On the sensory side, I know they have a red room, that is, a room where all the lighting is red. This washes out most of the visual attractiveness of the food and allows more objective food tasting results.