The art and science of beverage technology

ISBT 2013 Scholarship Recipients

The International Society of Beverage Technologist is pleased to announce the Scholarship winners for 2012. Click on any of the images for a high resolution version of the photo.

Claire Burtch

I originally became interested in beverages as a freshman at Purdue. I began working as an undergraduate research assistant in Dr. Mario Ferruzzi's laboratory. Here, I assisted a Ph.D. student in his work on beverages. This work regarding the degradation of anthocyanins when used as natural colorants, was published in 2013. During my junior year, I began another project, this time dealing with wines. In this, I assisted a student in profiling the polyphenolic content of red and white wines. As a senior, I am continuing my work on this project.

This past summer, I was fortunate to work as a Product Development Intern with PepsiCo in Barrington, IL. Here, I was a member of the Gatorade team. This was a wonderful opportunity to apply what I have learned in my classes at Purdue to the real world. My projects included reformulating the sweetness profile of Gatorade Thirst Quencher for the UK and optimizing the viscosity a protein powder. I truly enjoyed this experience.

I want to thank you for your contribution to my education and allowing me to have access to so many great opportunities. I appreciate your investment in my future and look forward to becoming a contributor to the beverage industry during my career as a food scientist.

Shelby Curlew

During my internship with Unilever (January - August) my major projects were for the Lipton Tea brand. I worked on the packaging development of black teas, green teas, tea powders, ready-to-drink beverages, and the new K-Cups for Keurig machines. I had the opportunity to work on many innovation projects like the recently launched Lipton Natural Energy tea. This new product introduces new packaging components to the Lipton brand. I had the opportunity to be on the Lipton packaging team during the commercialization process of this product; from the ideas stage to first production.

Through my internship in the beverage industry I gained experience with flexible packaging: wraps, paperboard cartons and trays, filter paper, and corrugated cases. I worked with many suppliers in these categories and I even had experience with the Pepsi Lipton Partnership for Lipton ready-to-drink beverages in rigid containers. Overall, my beverage industry experiences have been very beneficial to my career in the packaging field and have motivated me to seek out more companies in the beverage industry for my career after I graduate from Michigan State University in May 2014.

Kelsey Tenney

Last year I was involved in a research project dealing with the relationship between solubility and deliquescence of crystalline ingredients. I looked at the ingredients overall and also grouped them into collections such as salts, sugars, emulsifiers, etc. This could should potential relationships between ingredients and between ingredient groups. The result was slightly inconclusive with a negative correlation. I saw relationships within ingredient groups hinting toward similar structures. In between ingredient collections, there was less of a relationship seen. This indicated that more ingredients needed to be studied. More research could have potential applications on how structure influences deliquescence and solubility. This would give a better indication as to how to store dry drink mixes.

This year, I am working on a different deliquescence-based experiment within Dr. Mauer's lab. This project deals with the relationship between deliquescence and the formation of a crystal-hydrate. When deliquescent crystalline ingredients begin to interact with water surrounding them, a few transitions occur. First, the water starts to adsorb on the outside of a particle. After a few layers of water form (normally around five), water begins to absorb into the particle — this is called the point of deliquescence, as I investigated above. Prior to deliquescence, however, a hydrate can be formed when the water becomes a part of the crystal matrix. This can be a big problem because water can be within the powder without it being apparent. Hydrate formation can affect three big components of powders. These include ingredient stability, water migration out of the crystal matrix, and purity problems with assumed anhydrous ingredients. The goal of this research project is to determine if a polymer can prevent hydrate formation prior to deliquescence. This result could have a huge application in the powdered beverage industry. If hydrate formation can be inhibited, that would widen the range of storage environments allowable for products.