Chris Grünberg has already been with us in the company since March 2019 as a project manager in product development at the MEGGLE Business Unit Food Ingredients.

On 01 September 2021, Chris Grünberg completed his part-time studies for the Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Food Technology & Nutrition with excellence.

We congratulate him warmly for this and are pleased to have him answer a few questions about himself and his work at MEGGLE.

 

Mr. Grünberg, would you briefly describe what your master’s thesis is about?

For my master’s thesis, I dealt with the production of spray-dried caseinate. This mainly involved researching the theoretical and legal principles, conducting experiments on a laboratory and pilot plant scale, and creating process and calculation models in comparison with casein fluidized bed drying and caseinate extrusion.

Where did you complete your master’s degree?

I completed the master’s program part-time at the Management Center Innsbruck in Austria. The organizational form and its time model made it possible for me to complete my studies mainly in the evenings and on weekends, parallel to my full-time job. The colorful mix of technology, chemistry, nutritional medicine, analytics, food law, quality assurance and economics convinced me to want to take this step.

What did the work process of your master thesis look like?

The first discussions or the rough conception of the thesis has started about 1 year before completion. I got the final approval or permission to work on it in November 2020. I started with a lot of office work and research in books, journals, patent specifications, legal texts and theses around this topic. After that, I put this acquired information into practice on a laboratory and pilot plant scale and gained my own first practical experience of it. The phase that took the longest was the subsequent generation and processing of the data through, for example, laboratory analyses. In the end, I had to put the work down on paper and present it in a comprehensible way before a final presentation including an oral final examination on the entire study finally took place on 01.09.2021.

Can you tell us a little more about your tasks and your position at MEGGLE?

As a project manager, I am mainly responsible for the spray-dried emulsions product group. This includes our Edifett® SCP’s (baking emulsifiers), Edifett® HWP’s (whipping agents), Edifett® fat powders (creamers), Megglite® (coffee whiteners) and Foamers. I accompany a project from the idea and conception phase to the handover to production or availability of the desired results.

So what does a normal working day in the product development at MEGGE Food Ingredients & Solutions look like?

My working day is very versatile and varied, as I always work on several projects in parallel. Tasks such as testing new raw materials, creating formulations, planning and carrying out pilot trials in the pilot plant or large-scale trials in production as well as evaluating product quality are my daily business. I am constantly in close contact with the relevant departments such as product management, sales, marketing, purchasing, production, quality assurance and logistics.

Why did you decide to work for a dairy processing company in the field of food technology?

I have to look back a few years for that. Even before my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, I completed a vocational training program to become a dairy technologist. During this time, I experienced the manufacture of dairy products at first hand and gained many practical impressions. I am so fascinated by this incredibly multi-faceted raw material “milk”, as it can be used to manufacture countless products or design processes. It was therefore important for me to be able to deepen these impressions later in my professional life. For this reason, I have been loyal to the dairy sector.

 

Thank you very much for the exciting insights, Mr. Grünberg. We are glad to have you as a colleague at MEGGLE and wish you nothing but the best in your private and professional life!

Sincerely yours,

Your Marketing Team from the MEGGLE Business Unit Food Ingredients