Dining & Catering recognizes Academic Partner of the Year

Purdue Dining & Catering has recognized the Department of Food Science as its annual Academic Partner of the Year.

The award recognizes relationships between Purdue Dining & Catering and significant academic partners. In 2018, Dining & Catering partnered with the FS 443 Food Product Design capstone class to develop an ice cream flavor for Purdue’s sesquicentennial celebration. Seven teams of students were responsible for developing a new product from concept through marketing, which included developing a sensory profile, creating a recipe, preparing samples, product testing, packaging and branding. Dining & Catering selected a winner from three finalists to serve to the Purdue community in conjunction with the sesquicentennial celebration.

“This relationship has many virtues giving the greatest value for us in being able to work with students from an academic food science standpoint, as well as give them real-life challenges in need of real-life solutions,” says Greg Minner, director of dining services. “In turn, this gives students a unique opportunity to apply skills, learn how to deal with clients and work together as a team. Furthermore, it gives us [Dining & Catering] a chance to get a completely different perspective on challenges we face, like bringing ice cream to the market.”

At a Purdue Dining & Catering reception where the award was presented, attendees had the opportunity to sample Boiler Tracks, the selected ice cream for Purdue’s 150th anniversary celebration. Developed by FS 443 students Deklin Veenhuizen, Joel Mohring, Yiwen Bao, Luping Xu, Molly Powell and Cameron Wicks, the ice cream is colored with a combination of caramel and annatto and flavored with vanilla extract. It includes a mix of chocolate pieces, toffee, caramel and chocolate variegate. More details on the production and availability of the ice cream will be available in the coming weeks.

Dharmendra Mishra, assistant professor of food science, was on hand to accept the award on behalf of the department. Mishra was the professor for the FS 443 class with which Dining & Catering partnered for the project.

“We had seven teams working on this project and it worked out quite well,” Mishra says. “The students had to go through product concept all the way through pilot trials to commercialization concepts. I’m so delightful to see that it is moving forward. I’m glad for all of the students who worked hard on the projects.”

The Department of Food Science has been a partner of Dining & Catering since 2009. The two departments have combined to offer internships to food science students, worked with the Boilermaker Butcher Block to develop the apple bratwurst that is served in Wiley Dining Court and developed plans for food storage. 

Purdue Dining & Catering’s mission is to nourish and inspire the Purdue community. The organization embraces a focus on co-curricular education and leadership development as an integral part of the Purdue experience. Dining & Catering offers more than 100 internships and intentional learning opportunities as part of its commitment to partnering with Purdue students.

Source: Greg Minner, director, Purdue Dining & Catering, gminner@purdue.edu
Writer: Matt Vader: writer/social media coordinator, Purdue Student Life Marketing, mvader@purdue.edu