Food tech student furthers study with Fonterra

The 22-year-old Aucklander recently relocated to Palmerston North for the job, and will spend a year learning all about the company and their products, while gaining her Master in Dairy Science and Technology at Massey’s Manawatū campus.

Dunn will graduate with a Bachelor of Food Technology with Honours in April, majoring in Food Product Technology.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at Massey. There is a great practical aspect to the degree, both in the lab and in the industry itself. I was able to build my practical skills and am now confident in a variety of settings.”

The former Diocesan School for Girls student always loved baking and cooking, as well as studying science at school. “My dad, who studied a Diploma of Agriculture at Massey, suggested I look at food technology. I went along to the Open Day, and that sealed the deal. I was so amazed by all the equipment and what I would be learning about that I knew it was what I wanted to do. I was interested in learning about how things went from an idea in a lab to full-scale production and knew that with Massey I would get to learn that.”

She says while the programme was challenging, it was also incredibly rewarding. “I really enjoyed my fourth year, getting stuck into my individual project which was the shelf life modelling of raw chicken.

“Chicken is a fast moving consumer good and whole birds generally have a shelf life of 11 days. The shelf life is affected by a number of factors including processing temperatures, initial bacterial load, and temperature during distribution and storage.

“Understanding how temperature during processing will affect the shelf life is important for reducing product losses and maintaining consumer acceptability. The aim of my project was to develop and validate a predictive mathematical model to estimate the shelf life of raw whole chickens at different temperature and time combinations,” Dunn says.

“The practical experience meant I began my job having already worked in the industry. This allowed me to learn about workplace dynamics, health and safety in the workplace, and how companies operated. It also allowed me to see how my knowledge would fit into day-to-day work, which was really good to know during my studies. It reinforced how important the topics are in real life,” Dunn says.