3 PhD candidates 'Clean label solutions for structuring plant-based foods'

The positions are funded by TKI-Agrifood project: Clean label solutions for structuring plant-based foods, with co-funding from a large number of international companies. In this project we will work with food companies along the supply chain to combine in-depth academic with applied research to develop solutions for creating plant-based foods that are attractive, healthy and natural You will become a member of a team of researchers at both Wageningen University and Wageningen Food & Biobased Research (WFBR). Chair groups that are involved at Wageningen University are Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter (PCC), Physics and Physical Chemistry of Foods (FPH) and Food Process Engineering (FPE). Your assignment will be to investigate how we can better exploit the natural structuring ability of plant proteins to formulate attractive and healthy plant-based foods without additives. You will work with the researchers of WFBR, who will test the solutions that you will develop in actual food products. The three PhD candidates appointed on this project will work closely together, but each focus on a specific problem.

A first PhD (PCC, FPH) will focus on the unique physical-chemistry of plant proteins to see how this can be best exploited for food structuring;
a second PhD (PCC, WFBR) will focus on how to combine proteins from different sources to achieve synergistic effects in food structuring;
finally, a third PhD (FPE, WFBR) will focus on how other molecules in plants (fibres, phenolic compounds) interact with plant proteins and help determine the final structure of plant-based foods.