Food Physics Group

This is an IOP special interest group, which is a community of IOP members focused on a particular discipline, application or area of interest.

Special interest groups allow members to connect and share knowledge and ideas. The IOP funds groups to deliver a range of activities including events, prizes and bursaries. All of our groups are driven by members.

About the group

Physics supports the food manufacturing sector to:

improve productivity
improve food security
address health and nutrition concerns
minimise waste and environmental impact
develop and manufacture successful products
respond to population growth and globalisation

Food manufacturing is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, employing more than 400,000 people and supporting nearly three million subsidiary jobs across the supply chain. It directly contributes £28bn to the UK economy.

A multidisciplinary approach is vital to solving these problems and physics has a crucial role to play.

In 2016 and 2017 we ran a successful open innovation programme with our partners:

Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
PepsiCo
Unilever
Jacob Douwe Egberts
Sheffield Hallam University

This programme has engaged over 100 physicists from industry and academia. The Institute of Physics report, The Health of Physics in UK Food Manufacturing (PDF, 1.8MB), published in October 2016, describes the vital role physics plays in the food manufacturing industry and how it can be harnessed to make the sector world-leading.

The Physics in Food Manufacturing Group was inaugurated in 2017 to provide a link between physics working in food manufacture in industry and academia and between sub-disciplines: stimulating research, raising the profile of the role of physics in this sector and providing a mechanism to represent the views of physicists in this sector to policy makers.

Three international conferences later, and after much external outreach, the group voted at its 2020 AGM to change its name to Food Physics.

We believe Food Physics better reflects the breadth and depth of physics involved across the whole supply chain; spanning not just manufacturing, but also food sustainability, agriculture, ingredient functionality, product design, oral processing and digestion.

What the group does

We support links between industrial and academic food manufacturing physicists and between sub-disciplines. This is to:

stimulate research
raise the profile of the role of physics
represent the views of physicists to policy makers

IOP Business Innovation award winner 2018

PepsiCo won the Institute of Physics Business Innovation Award 2018 for the soft matter physics that underpins the launch of Lay's snacks in emerging markets.

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Group events

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Newsletters

Useful links

The Health of Physics in UK Food Manufacturing

Read the introduction and download the report

Committee and contacts

Chair	Dr Zachary Glover, MInstP
Secretary	Dr Robert Farr, FInstP
Treasurer	Dr John Melrose, FInstP
Ordinary Member	Mr John Bows, CPhys FInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Ing Daniel Hefft, CSci MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Daniel Hodgson, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Professor Eddie Pelan, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Professor Megan Povey, CEng CPhys FInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Marco Ramaioli, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Peter Schuetz, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Beccy Smith, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Arwen Irene Ingrid Tyler, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Martin Whitworth, CPhys MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Gleb Yakubov, MInstP

Twitter: @Physicsoffood
Email: [email protected]