Food Process Engineering Minor (B.Eng. (Bioresource)) (18 credits)
Offered by: Agricultural & Env.Sc.-Dean (Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences)
Degree: Bachelor of Engineering (Bioresource)
Program credit weight: 18
Program Description
The B.Eng.(Bioresource); Minor in Food Process Engineering covers engineering principles to transform agricultural commodities and biomass into food and biochemical products. Topics include the engineering of foods and food processes, food chemistry, the physical properties of biological materials, fermentation and bioprocessing, food safety engineering, and the design of machinery for bioprocessing.
A maximum of 9 credits of coursework in the student's Major may be double counted with this Minor.
Required Courses (12 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| BREE 325 | Food Process Engineering. | 3 |
Food Process Engineering. Terms offered: Fall 2026 Heat and mass transfer, enthalpy and mass balances, sterilizing, freezing, fluid flow, pipes, steam, refrigeration, pumps and valves. | ||
| FDSC 251 | Food Chemistry 1. | 3 |
Food Chemistry 1. Terms offered: Winter 2027 A study of the chemistry and functionality of the major components comprising food systems, such as water, proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. The relationship of these components to food stability will be studied in terms of degradative reactions and processing. | ||
| FDSC 330 | Food Processing. | 3 |
Food Processing. Terms offered: Winter 2027 The principles and practices of food processing with an emphasis on canning, freezing, and dehydration. A survey of the newer methods of food preservation such as irradiation, reverse osmosis etc. | ||
| LSCI 211 | Biochemistry 1. | 3 |
Biochemistry 1. Terms offered: Fall 2026, Winter 2027 Biochemistry of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, nucleic acids; enzymes and coenzymes. Introduction to intermediary metabolism. | ||
Complementary Courses (6 credits)
3 credits from the following list:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| FDSC 300 | Principles of Food Analysis 1. | 3 |
Principles of Food Analysis 1. Terms offered: Fall 2026 The fundamentals of food analysis are presented with the emphasis on the major components of foods. Topics include: food components, sampling, method selection, official methods, proximate analysis, moisture, protein, fat, ash, fiber, carbohydrates, vitamins and nutraceutical compounds. | ||
| FDSC 310 | Post Harvest Fruit and Vegetable Technology. | 3 |
Post Harvest Fruit and Vegetable Technology. Terms offered: Fall 2026 The post harvest chemistry and physiology of horticultural crops as they affect quality and marketability, handling methods pre and post harvest, principles and practices in cooling, storage, transportation and packaging. | ||
| FDSC 319 | Food Commodities. | 3 |
Food Commodities. Terms offered: Winter 2027 The relationship between the chemistry of food constituents present in common commodities, such as milk, meat, eggs, cereals, oilseeds etc. and the common processing technologies associated with their transformation into stable food products. | ||
| FDSC 400 | Food Packaging. | 3 |
Food Packaging. Terms offered: Winter 2027 An integrated approach to the materials used for the packaging of food products, considering the physical, chemical and functional characteristics of such materials and their utility, relative to the chemistry of the food system they are designed to enclose and preserve. | ||
3 credits form the following list:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| BREE 403 | Biological Material Properties. | 3 |
Biological Material Properties. Terms offered: Fall 2026, Winter 2027 Relationships between composition, structure and properties of biological materials. Measurement methods and use of mechanical, thermal, electromagnetic, chemical and functional properties in the design of new applications and product development. | ||
| BREE 505 | Life Cycle Assessment for Sustainable Agrifood Systems. | 3 |
Life Cycle Assessment for Sustainable Agrifood Systems. Terms offered: Winter 2027 Examination of the methods for food system sustainability assessment and their trade-offs, focusing on conducting environmental life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, and an introduction to social life cycle assessment for agrifood systems (crops and livestock). Additionally, methods for trade-off analysis among the three sustainability dimensions – environment, economics, social – will be evaluated and applied to agrifood system optimization and sustainability decision-making. | ||
| BREE 519 | Advanced Food Engineering. | 3 |
Advanced Food Engineering. Terms offered: Winter 2027 Advanced topics in food engineering. Concepts of mathematical modelling and research methodologies in food engineering. Topics include heat and mass transfer in food systems, packaging and distribution of food products, thermal and non-thermal processing, rheology and kinetics of food transformations. | ||
| BREE 530 | Fermentation Engineering. | 3 |
Fermentation Engineering. Terms offered: Winter 2027 Advanced topics in food and fermentation engineering are covered, including brewing, bioreactor design and control and microbial kinetics. | ||
| BREE 531 | Post-Harvest Drying. | 3 |
Post-Harvest Drying. Terms offered: Winter 2027 Heat and moisture transfer with respect to drying of agricultural commodities; techniques of enhancement of heat and mass transfer; drying efficiency and scale-up problems. | ||
| BREE 532 | Post-Harvest Storage. | 3 |
Post-Harvest Storage. Terms offered: Winter 2027 Active, semi-passive and passive storage systems; environmental control systems; post-harvest physiology and pathogenicity; quality assessment and control methodology; economic aspects of long-term storage. | ||
| BREE 535 | Food Safety Engineering. | 3 |
Food Safety Engineering. Terms offered: Fall 2026 The application of engineering principles to address microbial and chemical safety challenges in food processing, including intervention technologies (traditional and novel non-thermal intervention technologies, chemical interventions, and hurdle approach); control, monitoring and identification techniques (biosensors); packaging applications in food safety (active packaging, intelligent or smart packaging); and tracking and traceability systems. | ||