Three Food Science and Technology students, Gabriela Haro, Maria Trevino and Luis Vazquez, were selected to participate in a six-week internship with Scan Tech in McAllen, Texas, a company specializing in electron beam irradiation of food products to increase safety and quality.

The students were assigned various projects such as international customer integration protocols, third party sanitation SSOPs and shelf life study SSOPs. They worked closely with industry professionals to develop programs, procedures, inventory usage and cost analyses that Scan Tech can implement into their daily processes.

The culmination of the internship was a presentation made by each student to Scan Tech employees: Dwayne House, CEO; Chip Starns, executive vice president; Marc Petitpas, national director of sales and marketing; Jorge Sanches, general manager; Evan Thielman, business development manager; and Pedro Mata, food safety compliance manager. Additionally, faculty and staff from Texas A&M McAllen were also present.

The department is very proud of our three student interns. Their presentations were professionally executed and well thought out. Based on feedback received, their work was beneficial to Scan Tech.

The students did an amazing job! Their work was well thought out, professionally executed and from feedback received, a helpful benefit to Scan Tech. We are proud of how these three students represented our department and applied what they learned in the classroom to a real world setting.

We would like to thank Scan Tech for providing a rich learning experience for our students and look forward to more high impact learning partnerships with Scan Tech and the Department of Food Science and Technology.