Food science

Abstract

The term ‘Food Science’ first appeared in 1937 when Dr Franklin Kidd, at that time Director of the Low Temperature Research Station, Cambridge, addressed the Annual General Meeting of the Food Group of the Society of Chemical Industry. In the course of his talk, he said ‘We hope to see, as a natural development arising out of our activities, university education in Food Science and honours degrees in the subject.’ Twelve years were to elapse before the first honours course in the subject was established by the late Professor James P. Todd in the Royal Technical College, Glasgow (now Strathclyde University) in 1949. A further twelve years were to pass before other universities in England took up the subject, soon to be followed in almost every country in the world with a well-developed university system. In making this prior claim for Strathclyde University, it must immediately be admitted that aspects of the subject had been taught elsewhere before 1949 under a variety of names (for example, Dairying, Cereal Science and the like) but the special significance of the Strathclyde use of the term ‘Food Science’ was conceptual. It implied the existence of a common scientific discipline underlying the approach to the study of the properties of all foodstuffs. Time has proved the value of this unifying idea and its influence is no longer in dispute. In the early days of the subject, a line was drawn at the farm gate, with agricultural science within and food science without. This convenient distinction has proved to be artificial, and although still used by some, food science has moved behind the gate as its influence on most aspects of crop quality continues to increase.