Food Process Engineer

• DISCIPLINE:
  Food Engineering
  
  
• AREA OF EXPERTISE:
  Food process engineering including cooking, cooling, drying, evaporating, size reduction, materials handling, filling, packaging, cleaning, conceptual design and troubleshooting
  
  
• GENERAL AREAS OF RESEARCH:
  Studies in the effective safe drying of foods; improvement in food products processing; general areas of process engineering in foods; food chain traceability; the heat recovery of searing and cooking of foods, especially in continuous processing systems; low-input vegetable preservation; the sanitization, safety and security of tree-nut harvesting and processing.
  
  
• CONTACT:
  Address: Oklahoma State University
  Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center
  124 FAPC
  Stillwater, OK 74078
  Phone: 405-744-6688
  Fax: 405-744-6313
  E-mail: bowser@okstate.edu
  
  

• CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS:
  
  
• Advancement of a whole-chain, stakeholder driven traceability system for ag commodities.

The purpose of this research is to improve product traceability for ag commodities. The funding for this project is through the USDA-NIFSI with a total of $543,000 for three years. PI's include Brian Adam, Mike Buser and a host of Co-PI’s. Worked with graduate students on their research projects. Planned tour of beef slaughter facilities in Colorado and Texas. After many attempts to coordinate schedules of potential attendees, the tours were postponed until after fall semester.



• Smart hygiene compliance monitoring for safe food handling programs.

The purpose of this research is to improve and verify hand washing operations in food processing facilities and in the field. Funding included $47,750 from OSU Planning Grants for Establishing Creative Interdisciplinary Programs. PI’s include Dr. Ning Wang and Weihua Sheng. The project is approved and underway.



• Empowering families through low-input farming and low-cost canning of select fruits.

The purpose of this research is to discover and implement new technologies and processes to grow and preserve tomatoes using very low resource input. The expected deliverable is a process to preserve tomatoes that requires very little heat and water and uses low-cost packaging materials. We submitted a concept proposal to the USAID-GCFSI Innovation Grants RFP. Budget is $100,000 over an 18-month period. Co-PI’s include Paul Weckler and Lynn Brandenberger. The status of this project is pending; we should know about the concept proposal by mid-October.



• Development of ultraviolet diode-based disinfectant systems for fruit juice pasteurization.

The purpose of this project is to identify new, energy-efficient equipment for juice pasteurization. An SBIR proposal was submitted through the NPDC. Unfortunately, I have not seen the overall budget and don’t expect to have a significant share.Co-PI’s include Chuck Willoughby, Peter Muriana, Robert Taylor and NPDC Staff. The status of this project is pending.



• Screening study for tomato preservation.

The purpose of this research is to determine if tomatoes can be preserved using minimal energy and materials inputs. Shelf-life study is in progress. Eight treatments were tested in a statistically designed screening study on the preservation of tomatoes in plastic bags. Three of the treatments have been identified for their positive contribution to prolonging the shelf-life of raw tomatoes.