UCC/Teagasc Strategic Alliance

Agriculture minister Brendan Smith TD yesterday officially launched the UCC/Teagasc Strategic Alliance in Food Research and Innovation. Overall, an excellent idea that will strengthen the already strong links between the two institutions.

Cheese and honey...

A new spread that combines honey and cream cheese created by UCC students was the winner of the UCC New Food Product Development Showcase. This Showcase is an annual exhibition of new food products developed by students from the BSc Food Science and BSc Food Business degree programmes at UCC as part of their final-year research projects. For more information, please click here.

Actually, the flavours of hard cheese and honey complement each other surprisingly well; if you don't believe me, give it a try!

Dairy Technology Expertise in Ireland

The third technology and expertise alert has been prepared for the dairy sector by Relay. This highlights the technology and expertise as well as the facilities, equipment, services and key contacts at Irish institutes and universities. It is hoped that this document will help researchers quickly identify who can help with R&D/technical challenges and where the relevant expertise and equipment is available.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food through the FIRM programme has funded 104 projects directly aimed at supporting the dairy industry and this research has contributed in a significant way to the expertise at the institutes and universities.

To download this document, please click here: Dairy Technology and Expertise in Ireland.

(Picture credit)

Cheese masters

Two students graduated today with MSc degrees in the cheese area. Marvin Jiwan (left) worked on the use of yeast adjuncts and Cheddar quality while Eric Dunlea (right) worked on a processed cheese-enzyme modified cheese hybrid. Both are now gainfully employed; Marvin is still in UCC (for the moment) working on a project in Nutritional Sciences while Eric works for R&D with Dairygold.

In addition, our first four "2+2" students from China (who completed their first two years of study in Beijing Technical and Business University and then transferred to UCC for the final two years) graduated with their BSc degrees in Food Science (shown below with Dr Michael Murphy, President of UCC).