featured in this issue - NZIFST - The New Zealand Institute of Food ...

NZIFST Careers
NZIFST
Senior food scientist Nicky Sutton, of Formula Foods
Kate Morris with Shelley Banham of Griffins Foods
who mentored Kate’s team in the NZIFST /CREST PD
Challenge
Supporting schools makes a
difference
Futureintech Ambassadors supporting students is of
benefit to both the students and the food industry; here is
another success story.
In 2009 Kate Morris, a Year 12 student at Saint Kentigern College,
competed in the NZIFST/CREST Product Development
Challenge. Her team was mentored by Shelley Banham, then
from Griffins Foods. In 2010 Kate needed a client for her Year
13 food technology project and access to a range of practicing
technologists to complete her Scholarship report. Kate approached
Shelley, who had moved to Hubbard Foods, to be
her client, and Shelley agreed.
Kate was given a brief from Hubbard’s to develop a range of
mueslis. Shelley mentored Kate throughout 2010, and in September
Kate presented five prototypes to the company. She was
told “her final presentation exceeded Hubbard’s expectations
of what a Year 13 student can achieve for a food technology
project. Each muesli Kate presented tapped into the needs of
her target market in terms of flavours, textures, ingredients and
visual appearance.”
During her three years of study at Saint Kentigern College, Kate
was exposed to a wide range of Futureintech Ambassadors. The
experience introduced Kate to a variety of careers available in
the food industry. Her work with Shelley and the Hubbard’s
team in 2010 reinforced Kate’s desire to study food technology
as a career. Kate has enrolled in a Bachelor of Food Technology
at Massey University, Palmerston North, and was awarded
a Massey High Achiever Academic Scholarship to help her
achieve her dream.
Nicki Sutton and the careers
programme
Nicki Sutton is a senior food scientist with Christchurch based
Formula Foods and has a Bachelor of Applied Science from the
University of Otago. After graduating, she worked for Coca Cola
South and was involved with quality assurance, quality control
and packaging. Then, eight years ago she transferred to work
for Dave Rout at Formula Foods and has been there ever since.
Her work involves product development for various clients and
food types, shelf life testing, nutritional labeling and she also
oversees quality aspects of their manufacturing business.
Nicki has been an Ambassador with the Futureintech programme
for the past five years. Over that time she has gone to
schools and talked to students about how to get into different
jobs, what to study, what work she does and what the different
universities offer. She also responds to specific requests from
schools. For example she might talk to a class on how to read a
nutritional label or ask students to match samples of fruit drinks
to their labels. One time she did a taste testing on various kinds
of ginger beer and it was great to experience the students’ excitement.
She covers school careers evenings and talks to individual
families about career possibilities.
She gets a lot of satisfaction when she hears a student say to
parent “now I know what I want to study” or “now I know what
I want to do”.
Anna Searle of Cookietime is also a Futureintech Ambassador so
she and Nicki help judge secondary school science fairs.
All this needs time away from work and the Futureintech programme
is lucky that throughout the country there are employers
like Dave Rout who see value in letting their staff be
Ambassadors.
More Futureintech Ambassadors are needed in Canterbury. Ideally,
they should be younger than 30. If you are interested in
helping with this worthwhile programme, give Nicki a call or
contact the NZIFST Careers Programme person Jenny Dee on
deecisive@slingshot.co.nz
April/May 2011
35