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ALUMNI PROFILEA Sensory Journey as a Food TechnologistAs a child, Agnes Neo had always been fascinated Her favourite part of the job is food tasting andwith the food industry. She still remembers giving feedback when the kitchen experimentshow she used to watch her mother cook while with a new menu. Agnes quipped, “I’m a foodiewondering how a product such as a packet of and I think I’m in the right industry. The foodfrozen fish was packaged to prolong its shelf life. tasting part of my job is to help ensure theAgnes’s strong interest in food packaging quality of food is maintained and that the dishprompted her to pursue a career in the food tastes good and looks appealing.” She also hasand beverage industry. After completing her gone overseas to visit several food companies toDiploma in Food Science & Nutrition in NYP in better understand the food regulations in other2012, she joined Zingrill Holdings as a Food countries.Technologist. Agnes came on board as part Agnes is grateful for her training in NYP andof the Core Executive Programme by Spring credited her diploma for giving her the strongSingapore and NTUC’s Hospitality and Consumer subject foundation upon which she is nowBusiness Cluster. This programme aims to train further building her knowledge. She is alsoSingaporean professionals, managers and currently working with NYP to supervise studentsexecutives to fill supervisory and managerial from the School of Chemical & Life Sciences,positions in the food services and retail sectors. who are attached to Zingrill for their internshipThe 22-year old shared, “I have always been very programme.curious about what goes on behind the scene Agnes shared,”The journey as a food technologistin the food packaging and services industry. For has been interesting and fulfilling. I have growninstance, I would wonder how a company could a lot in my job and hope to continue to improveproduce large quantities of food items in a short existing food products and set standards forperiod of time or how they came up with different producing, packaging and marketing food.”recipes for a product. ”At Zingrill, Agnes assists in the areas of food Food Technologist, Agnes Neo examines the marinatedtechnology and quality control. She is looking at meat at Seoul Garden’s Northpoint outlet.developing a system to enhance quality checksbased on scientific means like PH value and brixvalue, a measure used by wine and fruit juiceindustries to determine the proportion of sugarpresent.Agnes added, “A key part of my job scope alsoinvolves checking batches of marinades andsauces from various countries. I will then comparethe data collated against their current taste andflavour benchmark.”12 Published by Communications & Outreach Department. Copyright © 2015 Nanyang Polytechnic Website: www.nyp.edu.sg Email: [email protected]