Future Food Collaborators: Luisa’s Vegan Chocolates

Luisa Vicinanza-Bedi is a chocolate maker based in Sneinton Market in Nottingham. Her company, Luisa’s Vegan Chocolates, makes bean to bar chocolates using cocoa beans sourced directly from farmer’s around the world. Luisa is collaborating with the Future Food Beacon on an Innovate UK project in Colombia. Luisa spoke to Lexi Earl about her company, …

Meet the Beacon: Prof David Salt

Professor David E. Salt is the Director of the University of Nottingham’s multimillion pound Future Food Beacon of Excellence. Prof Salt left the UK after his PhD in 1990 to work as an academic in the US where he became a Full Professor at Purdue University in 2005, and where, from 2004 – 2007, he was the …

Giant Swamp Taro: plant for the future?

Giant Swamp Taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii) is an underutilised but highly productive plant native to the North Sulawesi region of Indonesia. It can grow up to 5 metres tall, and may produce tubers underground that are 2 metres in diameter and up to 3 metres in length. It grows in flooded, brackish conditions. This makes it an …

Global-local knowledge systems for innovation and entrepreneurship in the developing world: An international workshop in Nottingham, 2-3 May 2019

This post was written by Dr Bin Wu and Dr Peter Noy. About 2 billion people (two thirds of the population) in the developing world live on about 500 million small farms, defined as plots of land smaller than 2 hectares. Smallholder farmers are “knowledge-rich, but economically poor” and there is a significant gap in …

‘Reach and Teach Science in Africa’: Strengthening Research Capacity for Generating Future Foods

This post is written by Dr Ute Voβ and Dr Thomas Alcock. In April 2019, Nottingham Research Fellow Dr Ute Voß and Doctoral Prize Fellow Dr Thomas Alcock received funding through the Future Food Beacon Partnership Fund to travel to Benin, West Africa. In this article, they offer insights into their experiences teaching molecular biology …

The Inaugural University Food Challenge!

Wednesday 27 February 2019 was a truly special day for the Institute of Food Science and Technology Student Group. The inaugural IFST University Food Challenge event was held at Coventry University. Teams from five different institutions: University College Birmingham, University of Nottingham, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Coventry University and Oxford Brookes University competed against each other to …

Future Food Beacon Collaborators: Tatiana Chavez

Tatiana Chavez was a visiting researcher in the Future Food Beacon in February and March of this year. She is from Ecuador. She works in the Biotechnology Research Center of Ecuador (CIBE), in the Molecular Biology laboratory. She currently researches the analysis of the expression of genes related to plant-pathogen and plant-biofertilizer interactions. In this …

Meet the Beacon: Dr Jonathan Atkinson

Jon Atkinson is a Senior Research Fellow and Technologist in Phenomics for the Future Food Beacon. As well as conducting his own research, his role is designed to help other researchers do their research by developing phenotyping equipment and kit. He will be working in the dedicated makerspace that has been developed within the Future Food …

Meet the Beacon: Dr Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson is a Senior Research Fellow and Technologist in Bioinformatics for the Future Food Beacon. Michael handles sequencing data, data derived from the DeepSeq facility, and conducts integrative analysis. His role is to support biologists in handling the large amount of data to be produced. Michael is also responsible for the digital requirements of …