Food science is a highly interdisciplinary science incorporating many different fields including microbiology, chemical engineering, and biochemistry. It deals with issues such as food safety, product development, the industrial processes used to manufacture food, food preservation, food technology, packaging, molecular gastronomy and sensory analysis. As one of the life sciences it is quite distinct from the field of nutrition.

You will learn the processes involved in developing, producing and evaluating new foods; examine the causes and prevention of foodborne illnesses; acquire the methodologies for microbiological and chemical testing of food; discover the causes and prevention of quality degradation; study the physics and physical chemistry of food and apply your knowledge to industry based problems.

As a food scientist you will examine all of the technical aspects of foods from 'field to fork' including the development of new foods, designing the processes to produce these foods, choosing the packaging materials for optimal storage and transport, conduct shelf-life studies and sensory evaluation of products with consumer panels as well as the microbiological and chemical testing of products for consumer safety.

Food Science is also available as an extended major or as a dual Food Science and Nutrition major.

The food industry, Australia's largest manufacturing industry, has strong demand for highly qualified graduates in food science. You will find employment in:

• food microbiology
• food standards
• food technology
• process and product development
• production management
• quality assurance
• research and development
• technical sales.