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17 June 2020 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Supplied
Food parcels
Annelize Visagie (Food Environment Office, with the black mask), Belinda Janeke (Career Services) and Angelo Mockie (Art, Culture and Dialogue Office) from the Division Student Affairs (DSA) busy preparing food parcels in the storeroom at the Thakaneng Bridge
Between 40 and 50 students from the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein receive daily food parcels during the lockdown, thanks to the cooperation between the Food Environment Office at the UFS, Tiger Brands, and the Total Garage in Brandwag.

Annelize Visagie from the Division of Student Affairs (DSA), who is heading the Food Environment Office at the UFS, says just before the national lockdown started in March, they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Tiger Brands to sponsor 500 food parcels to students who do not have bursaries. This is part of the UFS strategic goal of improving student success and wellbeing. UFS staff is working hard to implement initiatives and obtain sponsorships – such as this one with Tiger Brands – as well as food donations to ensure that students do not go hungry.

“Then the lockdown happened. However, the project continued, with Tiger Brands still sponsoring food parcels. Students email me and I respond to those emails. We are also looking at including students from the South Campus in the project.”

“I deliver the food parcels to the Total Garage across from the campus, where students collect it. We give between 40 and 50 parcels every day and have helped 650 students thus far. These parcels cost Tiger Brands R80 000 a month. We also provide students with vegetables from vegetable tunnels on campus,” says Visagie.

Visagie says the cooperation between the outside companies, the UFS, and even staff and students who volunteer, is heart-warming to see especially during this time of crisis. So is the gratitude from the students. They are also in discussions with the humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers to provide 200 food parcels to needy students from next month.

“We have a supply chain going on in the storeroom at the Thakaneng Bridge. It is great to see how staff members and students jumped in to help us pack the parcels. We have permits and more students want to help, but they can’t get onto campus at this time. We would not be able to do this without the help of Tiger Brands and the Total Garage.”  

The DSA Food Environment Office is also collaborating with senior management on the UFS Qwaqwa and South campuses to distribute food parcels on these two campuses.

News Archive

UFS researchers are producing various flavour and fragrance compounds
2015-05-27

 

The minty-fresh smell after brushing your teeth, the buttery flavour on your popcorn and your vanilla-scented candles - these are mostly flavour and fragrance compounds produced synthetically in a laboratory and the result of many decades of research.

This research, in the end, is what will be important to reproduce these fragrances synthetically for use in the food and cosmetic industries.

Prof Martie Smit, Academic Head of the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the UFS, and her colleague Dr Dirk Opperman, currently have a team of postgraduate students working on the production of various flavour and fragrance compounds from cheap and abundantly available natural raw materials. 

Prof Smit explains that most of the flavours and fragrances that we smell every day, originally come from natural compounds produced mainly by plants.

“However, because these compounds are often produced in very low concentrations by plants, many of these compounds are today replaced with synthetically-manufactured versions. In recent times, there is an increasing negative view among consumers of such synthetic flavour and fragrance compounds.”

On the other hand, aroma chemicals produced by biotechnological methods, are defined as natural according to European Union and Food and Drug Administration (USA) legal definitions, provided that the raw materials used are of natural origin.  Additionally, the environmental impact and carbon footprint associated with biotech-produced aroma chemicals are often also smaller than those associated with synthetically-produced compounds or those extracted by traditional methods from agricultural sources.

During the last four years, the team investigated processes for rose fragrance, vanilla flavour, mint and spearmint flavours, as well as butter flavour. They are greatly encouraged by the fact that one of these processes is currently being commercialised by a small South African natural aroma chemicals company. Their research is funded by the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation through the South African Biocatalysis Initiative, the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Catalysis and the Technology Innovation Agency, while the UFS has also made a significant investment in this research.

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