Fergus M. Clydesdale Center for Foods for Health and Wellness

Food Science Industrial Alumni Advisory Board

In Chenoweth Laboratory, a former kitchen for students in the Hospitality and Tourism Management Department is being transformed into sophisticated research laboratories for the Fergus M. Clydesdale Center for Foods for Health and Wellness, an enterprise undertaken by the Department of Food Science and its illustrious advisory board. The center, one of a few of its kind in the country, is devoted to improving the nutritional quality and safety of food, a centerpiece of new efforts at disease prevention. The 29-member Industrial Alumni Advisory Board helped raise over $1.8 million needed to match state funds for construction that began in early 2010. "The board saw that the future in the food industry is in wellness and trying to prevent disease through proper diet," says Charles Feldberg '54, a retired executive at BESTFOODS and the first chair of the board. "I'm convinced the center will make a contribution to improving worldwide health."

Established in 1989, the board is a who's who of the top leaders in the food industry worldwide, and a bridge between academia and industry. Under the current leadership of Dr. Noel Anderson, '74, '77 MS, '80 Ph.D, Vice President, Pepsico, board members have raised funds to meet a variety of needs in the Food Science Department and members have served as guest lecturers and helped students secure employment in the food industry. "We've done well with melding a public-private partnership with advantages to everyone," says Gilbert A. Leveille '56, board member and executive director of Wrigley Science Institute.

The Fergus M. Clydesdale Center for Foods for Health and Wellness at the University of Massachusetts Amherst develops and implements innovative Food Science and Policy solutions to enhance foods that can improve the health and wellness of our food supply. This goal requires a unique partnership of outstanding faculty, students, and technicians conducting fundamental research to develop technologies that can be transferred to the private sector through open innovation partnerships. The center consists of state-of-the-art laboratories and scientific instrumentation to conduct research on the discovery and characterization of bioactive food components, and technologies that can be used to incorporate them into foods in a way that they can improve health and wellness without negatively impacting food quality.

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