What is Food Science?

In a rapidly changing world, with a rapidly growing world population and increasing starvation, the provision of good-quality food products is becoming more and more important. The food industry in South Africa has become a highly dynamic industry, which offers golden opportunities to qualified food scientists. The University of the Free State has an equally dynamic Food Science section where food scientists are trained to address the challenges of the future in an innovative way. In order to understand these challenges, it is necessary to have the necessary background information regarding the nature and scope of the training and working conditions of food scientists.

Food Science is the application of science and engineering to the processing and preservation of food. It is not a basic science, but an interdisciplinary science that forms the link between the end point of agriculture and the beginning point of the consumer market, with the processing technology in between, which involves applications of the natural sciences and engineering.