Welcome to Oregon State University, Department of Food Science and Technology.
As you consider joining us, either as an undergraduate or graduate student, please explore our program and see what we have to offer!
Undergraduate Students
Food Science and Technology concerns the chemistry and engineering necessary to deliver safe, appealing and convenient food products from the farm gate to the food marketer.
The academic program integrates principles and concepts in the physical, biological, and engineering sciences, and applies them to the scientific and technological aspects of food processing.
The role of the food scientist is to successfully integrate these disciplines to assure an abundant, high quality, and nutritious food supply.
Food science is all about understanding the science behind what we eat and using that knowledge to make food better. It combines subjects like chemistry, biology, engineering, and nutrition to study everything from how food grows to how it tastes, looks, and lasts on the shelf.
In this field, you might research the perfect way to store strawberries so they stay fresh longer, design packaging that keeps chips crunchy, or develop a sports drink that gives just the right boost. Every step, from farm to fork, involves food science—and without it, our grocery store shelves would look very different.
Food scientists explore how food changes when it’s cooked, frozen, dried, or packaged, and they figure out the best ways to keep it safe from harmful bacteria. They also work on making food healthier, improving flavors and textures, and creating new products—like plant-based burgers, gluten-free bread, or energy drinks.
SENSORY SCIENCE
New Product Development: Create new flavors, develop products that are more convenient, more nutritious, more fun. This means everything from winning an award for a new flavor of iced tea to developing a more nutritious cracker for children in a developing country.
Taste Panels: Work with consumers and trained experts to determine what's most desirable in a product. There's lots of interaction with people here—it's a highly valuable part of product development!
FOOD CHEMISTRY
Understand the structure and function of foods and ingredients: Ensure product stability, consistent flavor and texture, ease of processing. This is where chemistry comes to life—instead of questions in a textbook, you answer real-world questions, like how to ensure an even distribution of peppermint flavor in breath mints, how to keep cereal crunchy in milk, or how to make a low-fat product seem like the real thing.
Make foods healthier: Add nutrients, lower fat content, increase fiber content—whatever the market demands.
MICROBIOLOGY
Food Safety: Ensure that our food supply is safe—from initial storage through processing, transportation, and retail channels, until the consumer purchases the product—and beyond. Develop processes, monitor conditions, test foods for contamination.
Fermented Foods: Beverages, fermented dairy products, soy and vegetable fermentation. From wine to sauerkraut, from tofu to yogurt—add science to the art of preserving foods in this ancient, yet very modern method.
ENGINEERING
Packaging: Package foods in such a way that their shelf life is extended, flavor and nutrition is preserved, and that is convenient and appealing to the consumer.
Processing: Develop processes to ensure product quality and to maximize processing efficiency. From peeling peaches without bruising them to creating candy bars that are identical—it's the process engineers who design the processes and make them work.
SUSTAINABILITY
Every area of the food science and technology program views their work through a sustainability lense.
Our graduates get jobs—good ones. Starting salaries vary. Those whose highest degree is a bachelor’s represented the largest group of survey
respondents in the 2024 IFT Compensation and Career Path Report, earning a median salary of $96,500. Salaries for those with advanced
degrees are higher.
You may work for a small company or a large corporation—or start your own business. You may work in a government laboratory or for a university. Our graduates work in Oregon as well as throughout the United States—even internationally. Some have jobs that keep them close to home, while others travel extensively.
You may be developing new foods or beverages, improving packaging or processing techniques, ensuring food safety, producing more convenient or nutritious foods, or any number of other exciting possibilities.
Whether you like to be around a lot of people or just a few—whether you enjoy working more with machines or people, whether you are interested in things at the cellular or molecular level, or dealing with issues at the corporate level, food science and fermentation science offer a wide variety of job settings, with plenty of upward and lateral mobility.
Post Baccalaureate Students
Graduate Students