MEng Food Engineering

UCAS code

H791

Attendance

Full-time

Four years full-time

At a glance

Study a course that opens up exciting career opportunities in the food and drink industry. This course has been developed in collaboration with some of the UK's biggest food and drink manufacturing companies and best loved brands. You gain practical experience through paid industry placements and develop specialist expertise in food engineering, food manufacture efficiency and sustainability.

Key points
• Achieve a higher qualification by graduating with a master's degree.
• Work towards chartered engineer (CEng) status.
• Gain experience working with leading UK food and drink companies on competitively paid industrial placements.
• Develop the technical skills in mechanical, electrical, civil and chemical engineering to gain a graduate role.

What is food engineering?
Food engineering blends engineering disciplines with a strong understanding of food and food science. It develops solutions to food design, manufacture and supply challenges whilst overcoming the unique issues that underpin safe food production. Food engineering covers a number of areas including • mechanical engineering • process control and efficiency • automation and manufacturing systems • food science and food safety • energy efficiency.

Food engineers help to deliver innovative and high quality products to customers throughout the world. They apply the mechanical engineering study of structures, systems performance, and how fluids behave, to safely and efficiently produce food and drink. Food engineers can specialise in design, development, research, maintenance and operations such as processing, packaging, storage and transportation.

The food and drink industry is exciting, fast moving and economically strong. It is the UK's largest manufacturing sector, with an annual turnover of nearly £80 billion. It employs around 400,000 people across more than 7,000 businesses and creates 8,500 new products every year.

About this course

This course prepares you for a career in the food and drink industry. By replicating real-life scenarios, you learn to create new systems and processes to deliver safe, competitive and innovative food and drink products.

We introduce you to engineering principles and how these are applied to food and drink manufacture. You design, implement and analyse sophisticated engineering process and control systems for manufacturing food in the most energy efficient, environmental and economical way.

You gain experience designing experiments and testing food engineering techniques and systems in our specialist engineering and food laboratories. By applying technical knowledge to practical challenges faced by industry, you build the skills and knowledge to develop innovative solutions to problems. You also learn how these techniques can improve product quality and reduce the impact on the environment, while maintaining industrial competitiveness.

Other areas you study include the cost effectiveness, financial justification and efficiency of processes. Finally you develop knowledge and understanding of management and leadership.

You are taught by experts with extensive industry experience including research and consultancy in food, engineering and manufacturing. We have strong links with leading companies who provide real world examples to learn from. These companies, along with other major food and drink manufacturers, helped design the course to ensure it gives you the skills and knowledge needed for a successful career in the food and drink industry. Industry professionals also deliver guest lectures to provide you with the latest expertise and industry knowledge.

Your studies are supported by integrated, competitively paid industrial placements. These placements ensure you gain extensive workplace experience, developing your ability and employability. They are provided by the food and drink industry for all students on the course.

As well as the paid work placements embedded in the course, you attend industry field trips to a range of companies to develop your technical and professional knowledge of equipment and processes.

Key areas of study
You gain expertise in • food composition and safety • mechanical engineering • thermodynamics and thermo fluids • mechanical systems • food processing and process control • automation • lean manufacturing • process improvement • business, finance and management.

Associated careers

As a food engineering graduate you can find a growing number of exciting and rewarding careers in product and process design, development and control, and managing sustainable food manufacture and delivery.

Agreements are in place with employers to help you gain employment within food engineering when you graduate (subject to final grades, references and recruitment processes). Employers include • apetito • Arla Foods • Burton's Biscuit Company • Cargill • Coca-Cola Enterprises • Dalehead Foods • F Duerr and Sons • Finsbury Foods • General Mills • KP Snacks • Maple Leaf Foods • Mars • McCain Foods Ltd • Mondeléz International • Nestlé UK • New England Seafood • New Primebake • PepsiCo UK • Pork Farms • Premier Foods • Silver Spoon • AB World Foods and Jordans and Ryvita • Tate and Lyle Sugars • United Biscuits • Warburtons • William Jackson Food Group.

Starting salaries for graduate food engineers can be between £24,000 and £27,000 a year. With experience and increased responsibilities as an engineering director, this can rise to between £55,000 and £75,000 a year.

There's a high demand for engineers in the UK. A recent report by EngineeringUK, commented that engineering companies are projected to have 2.74 million job openings from 2010 to 2020, and of these approximately 87,000 a year will require people with degree qualifications. At the moment, the UK only produces 46,000 engineering graduates each year. As a graduate of this course, your specialist engineering skills will put you in an excellent position to gain employment within the food and drink industry or wider engineering sectors.

Professional recognition

This course is delivered by Sheffield Hallam University working in partnership with the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink and the Food and Drink Federation. It has received co-investment from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills through the Employer Investment Fund.

Course content

Year one modules

• engineering principles • mechanical engineering in the food industry • engineering maths • computer methods for engineering design • food engineering practice • food composition and safety • three month placement

Year two modules

• thermo fluid dynamics • dynamics and control A • further maths for mechanical engineers • instrumentation and electrical systems • environment and society • engineering business management in the food industry • mechanics • packaging • food processing • three month placement

Year three modules

• individual project • project and quality management • computational fluid dynamics • automation • dynamics and control • total quality management • food processing applications • six month placement

Year four modules

• group project • energy and environmental management • lean operations • contemporary issues in food technology • finance and marketing • fluid and structure interactions • plus one option module

Assessment

• coursework • examinations

Entry requirements

2014 entry requirements

Normally five GCSEs at grade C or above including English language and maths, plus

• 300 points with at least 160 points from two GCE/VCE A levels including maths and a physical science or equivalent Btec National qualifications with appropriate maths and science content. Points from Key Skills and general studies A level are excluded.

• Foundation – pass from the preparatory year of our Extended Degree Programme Engineering and Mathematics, depending on academic performance

 • Access – an Access to HE Diploma with at least 45 credits at level 3 from a maths and science-based QAA-recognised Access to HE course, or an equivalent Access to HE certificate

 If English is not your first language you must have an IELTS score of 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in all skills or equivalent. If your English language skill is currently below IELTS 6.0 we recommend you consider a Sheffield Hallam University Pre-sessional English course which will enable you to achieve an equivalent English score.

 All suitably qualified applicants will be invited to attend a formal interview.

 We will consider applicants who have studied other qualifications individually. Please contact us for more information.

Fees

How to apply

This course is for 2014 entry.

You can apply online at www.ucas.com

Contact details

For more information or to check the progress of your application phone +44 (0)114 225 5555, fax +44 (0)114 225 2167, e-mail admissions@shu.ac.uk