The Hot-Fill/High-Acid Processing Line is a Food Science departmental facility whose key research and teaching mission include high impact learning for scaled food processing, system modeling, outreach and entrepreneurship. It provides an excellent opportunity for students to engage in hands-on activity and manage food safety and operations on production size equipment. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and needed costly adjustment within the programming, the equipment has been out of use for a while.

We express our deep gratitude for the generous support extended by Best Maid Products of Fort Worth, Texas. Led by Noah Bass, the Vice President for Operations and Sales, a team of highly proficient engineers - Stephen Goetz, Taylor Pickering, and Lance Heinen - generously volunteered their time and expertise to operationalize the equipment.

This type of collaboration between industry experts and academia is ensuring that the next generation of food industry professionals are well-equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to enter their careers within the Texas Food Industry and beyond. Several faculty, including Drs. Stephen Talcott, Susanne Talcott, Elena Castel, Alex Castillo, and Al Wagner, will be supporting a team of students over the summer in high-impact courses to develop recipes, manage food safety plans, and processing SOPs.

We are excited to engage in processing of various beverages and condiments to support student learning and entrepreneurship. Our heartfelt thanks again to Best Maid Products for all their help and ongoing support!