On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. Explain the chemical, physical, functional and nutritional properties of the food commodities and how they determine food quality, safety and nutrition.
2. Apply current and emerging food preservation technologies to protect food quality and safety.
3. Identify integrated behaviour of food systems, chemical interactions between food components, and changes induced as a result of food processing.
4. Analyse spoilage symptoms and identify possible causes of food spoilage in fresh, minimally processed and processed foods.
5. Select and justify suitable packaging solutions for a range of food applications.
6. Critically evaluate literature in a chosen area of interest and design a research proposal, including objectives, justification, research plan, and methodology.
7. Apply principles of food preservation to lab scale production of processed food and evaluate variation in processing parameters or product formulation on product properties.
8. Systematically record experimental data and use statistical methods to summarise and assist interpretation of data.
9. Communicate effectively to a range of scientific and professional audiences via written reports and discussions.

1. Food Commodities (fruits, vegetables, cereals, meat and dairy), composition, production and processing.
2. Food preservation theories relating to chilling, freezing, thermal processing, fermentation, dehydration, and chemical agents.
3. Current and emerging food processing technologies including novel non-thermal techniques.
4. Causes and prevention of food spoilage, shelf life kinetics and food packaging requirements.
5. Food packaging materials and applications.