Engineering Food Jobs

Engineering in the food industry context is defined as:

'The application of engineering concepts and principles to the conversion of raw foods into safe consumer products of the highest possible quality.'

The entire spectrum of food engineering is associated with operation and maintenance of food processing plants as well as sophisticated research involving process and equipment design.The applications of engineering in food handling, processing, packaging, and distribution can be described in terms of unit operations. There are many different unit operations associated with the conversion of raw food materials to consumer products. The movement of foods and other materials within the processing plant requires the use of unique equipment and processes.

The importance of thermal treatments for food preservation requires that a broad range of heat-exchange equipment be used. Heat exchangers for liquids are unique in terms of sanitary design and clean ability of surfaces following thermal processing. A special component of thermal preservation is the design of thermal processes.

Several unit operations involve heat transfer in order to achieve the desired preservation even though storage stability is not the direct result of thermal treatment. An excellent example is the freezing process, where removal of thermal energy reduces product temperatures to levels where deterioration reactions are significantly inhibited. Concentration processes achieve a degree of preservation by reducing the availability of water for deterioration reactions, although the primary aim is reduction of liquid-product mass and volume. Although traditional concentration processes have used thermal energy to evaporate water, membranes of various types are now used to achieve the same results. The preservation of food products is achieved by reduction of the water content to low levels by means of dehydration processes which use thermal energy. These processes are applied to liquid foods and to products that are naturally solid.Another series of unit operations is used to alter the product composition or structure in some manner. These include separation, mixing, and extrusion. Separation processes are designed to divide food products into two or more components. While a variety of physical or chemical properties of the product components are used in the various separation processes, two of the most important processes are filtration and extraction. Filtration, a physical process, has several applications in addition to its use for separating product components. Extraction is most often designed to remove a specific or unique product component for use in a separate operation or product formulation. After separation, the final product is obtained through the use of a mixing process which includes a variety of equipment types. Finally, the extrusion process involves the use of both thermal and flow properties to achieve product preservation as well as some specified set of structural and textural characteristics.

The importance of cleaning and sanitation must be emphasized due to direct relationships to final product quality. The required operations vary considerably depending on the type of product handled and the type of equipment used. The processes required to manage the wastes generated during food handling, processing, packaging, and distribution are all similar, and many of the waste-handling and treatment operations are the same as those used directly with the food products.

The final operation to which the product is subjected before distribution is packaging. The package barrier is important for maintaining food products at desirable quality levels. Food packaging involves the selection of equipment needed for placing the product in the package as well as the selection of packaging material needed to protect the product in an optimum manner.
An engineering input to food handling, processing, packaging, and distribution that is applied to almost all unit operations is process control. The use of instrumentation and associated electronic controls has a significant impact on the efficiency of all components of the food delivery system. See also Food; Food manufacturing; Food microbiology; Food preservation; Food science; Unit operations.