Description
Design, scale, and optimize food processing systems and equipment using principles of chemical, mechanical, and food engineering; validate thermal and nonthermal processes to ensure safety, quality, and regulatory compliance; and develop efficient, sanitary, and sustainable methods to process, package, preserve, store, and distribute foods.
- • Develop equipment specifications, PFDs/P&IDs, and hygienic design criteria; coordinate with vendors and fabricators.
- • Evaluate processing and storage operations and implement HACCP, GMPs, and statistical process control.
- • Design and optimize unit operations and production lines to meet safety, quality, yield, and throughput targets.
- • Run pilot plant trials and process validations to confirm product quality, shelf life, and regulatory compliance.
- • Specify process parameters and control strategies, including CCPs and pasteurization or sterilization schedules.
- • Collaborate with R&D, QA, maintenance, packaging, and operators to troubleshoot scale-up and line issues.
- • Model heat and mass transfer, rheology, and reaction kinetics to predict processing effects on quality attributes.
- • Engineer preservation and packaging solutions (thermal, nonthermal, MAP, aseptic) to extend shelf life and reduce additives.
- • Design raw material receiving, storage, and handling systems to maintain ingredient integrity and stability.
- • Audit plants for compliance with FDA/USDA, GFSI, sanitation, worker safety, and environmental requirements; improve CIP/SIP.
- • Scale new products from lab to plant, defining equipment, line layouts, batch/continuous strategies, and start-up procedures.
- • Optimize energy, water, and waste; develop utilities and wastewater specifications to meet sustainability goals.
- • Prepare technical reports and present process designs, risk assessments, and ROI/OEE analyses to stakeholders.
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O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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Last reviewed: Jan 2026
