The School of Food Science & Nutrition, University of Leeds hosted the successful 17th Food Colloids Conference: Application of Soft Matter Concepts, which took place between 8th – 11th April 2018.
Morfo Zembyla, University of Leeds
The conference welcomed 300 delegates from 29 nations who attended the conference to learn, network and engage with the Food Colloids research that was presented. The event was not only special as it marked the return of the conference to the UK after 14 years but also because of the record-breaking number of attendees, number of countries represented and high quality posters in the conferences’ history.
The conference boasted 182 posters that were on display in the iconic Parkinson building throughout the event to maximize exposure to the cutting edge research. All students were entered into the Poster Prize which was sponsored by Food & Function. The three winners of the competition were: Morfo Zembyla (University of Leeds) Stabilization of water-in-oil emulsions using food grade materials, Judith Wemmer (ETH Zurich) Integration of laccase-mediated polymerization in processing of biopolymer mixtures and Mamisoa Nomena (University of Amsterdam) Drying of cellulose microfibril stabilized emulsions.
Judith Wemmer, ETH Zurich
Poster Prize winner Morfo Zembyla stated: “It was a successful and highly stimulating conference providing a great opportunity to discuss science with academic and industrial people from all over the world. My poster was awarded with the Food & Function poster prize and I am glad to see my work being recognized and rewarded. I kindly thank my supervisors, Prof Brent Murray, Dr Anwesha Sarkar (both from University of Leeds) and Dr Stewart Radford (Nestlé), for their support and guidance.”
The University of Leeds is home to the biggest and most highly cited Food Colloids and Processing academic group in Europe. The Food Colloids Group at the University of Leeds is internationally acclaimed for its interdisciplinary research worldwide, ranked first in Europe and third in the World according to field-weighted citation impact in Food Colloids, making it an ideal location for the conference destination, alongside it originating in Leeds.
Mamisoa Nomena, University of Amsterdam
Anwesha Sarkar, Associate Professor of Food Colloids at the School of Food Science & Nutrition at the University of Leeds, who is the conference chair commented: “We are delighted with the incredible success of our recent conference held in Leeds, and felt it truly highlighted the excellent conferencing facilities the city has to offer. The event offered an ideal environment for inspiring scientific conversation, with new knowledge uncovered as Food Colloids research reaches an important crossroad with paradigm shift towards ‘tailored’ food design for improving nutrition and human health.
There was a strong focus on the use of advanced structural characterization techniques that ranged from macro scale to few nanometers to understand complex food structures being presented by experts from various disciplines (from food science to pharmaceutical science to physics to mechanical engineering to biology). The buzzing city of Leeds also has a vibrant multi-cultural aspect and it is only a few miles from the beautiful Yorkshire countryside, where we had the opportunity to sightsee during the social event organized for the conference delegates – we are aiming to visit again soon!”
Poster prize winners, Food & Function Deputy Editor Rebecca Brodie, Professor Alan Mackie
by Sameera Rafiq, Research Support Officer
School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds
Notes to editors
Food Colloids is a biennial conference in the field of physical chemistry of complex foods. The subject area of the conference is physical chemistry of complex food systems with special emphasis on macromolecules that structure food. The aim is to expand knowledge on how interactions between food components create multi-phase structures on different length scales.
For more information on Food Colloids and its upcoming conference, please visit: http://www.foodcolloids2018.co.uk/
