Food manufacturer joins forces with UK university

British food manufacturer Fresh-Pak Chilled Foods has teamed up with University of Leicester, UK, to establish a centre of excellence for food technology.

The strategic partnership with the Department of Chemistry at the university will include academic consultancy, student projects and a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) worth in the region of £200,000 across the project duration.

The partnership includes the recruitment of an analytical chemist to the Fresh-Pak team, mentored by an academic and with access to the specialist expertise and facilities available at the university, due to be appointed at the end of January.

The academic input from the university will be courtesy of Professor Andy Abbot and Dr Alex Goddard from the Department of Chemistry, with support from Professor Jeremy Levesley from the Department of Mathematics.

Professor Andy Abott says, “The benefit to the university of collaborating with Fresh-Pak will be in demonstrating the impact of excellent academic research on a market sector (food processing). In addition, the new knowledge and best practice gained as result of the collaboration will feed back into the university in terms of teaching, new research themes and publication.”

Keith Foreman, managing director of Fresh-Pak, adds, “We are delighted to partner with the University of Leicester as innovation forms one of the major strategic elements of our company’s growth strategy.

“We already have great relationships with our customers and provide category leadership in the areas in which we operate and we see this as a further way of strengthening our position.

“In today’s highly competitive landscape we firmly believe that companies who innovate and constantly challenge all aspects of their operation will succeed, and the creation of a new Centre of Excellence will be instrumental in this.”