A Helping Hand
Peter Simpson Head of Food Technology at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise in Co Tyrone on providing vital support to the agri-food industry - and innovations in healthy food.
A school visit to what is now his current workplace made a young Peter Simpson think about combining his interests in science and food for the first time. After completing a BSc (Hons) in Food Science at Belfast Queens University he joined the pork and bacon industry, working in roles focused on food safety, HACCP and quality systems. He moved to what was then known as Loughry College to a role as Food Technologist which saw him providing advice to all sectors on a range of technical issues. Later, Peter managed the Food Business Incubation Centre, then the Further Education programmes in food, sending new graduates out into key jobs within the local food industry.
Today, Peter is Head of Food Technology at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), an integral part of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). “My specific role is to provide support to the agri-food industry, and in particular those people who are employed in food processing,” he explains. “This means working with over 250 food, drink and packaging busineses a year, helping these businesses adopt the latest technologies through knowledge transfer.”
Part of Peter’s remit involves implementing CAFRE’s plan to develop partnerships with international organisations and educational establishments to strengthen knowledge transfer provision and underpin economic growth. Peter and the team work on a large number of technical projects per year and they also train over 1,800 people annually on accredited, mandatory, or company-specific courses. “I have a fantastic team of 30 food technologists and food technology technicians, all of whom have extensive experience.
We are also closely connected to the further and higher education provision at the Loughry Campus and work with our education colleagues to support the full-time and part-time courses for industry entrants.”
It is a varied and interesting role which brings together all sorts of sections of the wider industry, something that Peter relishes. He and his team also love the challenge of pushing the boundaries of what can be done with food. “At the moment one of the key areas of work is helping businesses reformulate products to make them healthier,” he says. “Reducing salt and/or sugar and/or fat in food products is quite a challenge! Not only can reformulation drastically affect taste it can also have implications for cost, labelling and shelf-life. Thankfully within my team we have the breadth of expertise to address these issues. A recent project that we carried with the Food Standards Agency and the Northern Ireland bakery sector showed that nothing is impossible and even highly calorific goods such as scones can be made healthier.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, sustainability has also become a significant focus for the team’s work. “Helping businesses address plastics issues and reduce waste is a priority,” Peter explains. “Atp Loughry we have a team of packaging specialists which provides advice on topics including recyclable barrier films, compostable materials and augmented labelling. These are areas that every sector is interested in. There is also considerable interest in plant proteins. We are happy to work on projects like this providing the raw materials are both local and sustainable.”
CAFRE is also a hugely valuable resource for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). “Our role is to ‘help them to help themselves’ so we have a number of intervention strategies,” Peter says. Having world-class facilities at their disposal means Peter and his colleagues can take a small food business along what he calls the innovation pathway. Amenities such as a food innovation centre, a food technology centre and a food business incubation centre are joined by a monthly Invest NI pop-up business library offering advice to would-be entrepreneurs. In short, there is a huge amount of help available and, as Peter says, the good news is that there are a number of funding streams, such as Invest NI Innovation vouchers, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) and Intertrade Ireland Fusion that small businesses can access. For more information go to www.cafre.ac.uk.
About Peter
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Magherafelt, Co Derry and now live quite near there, between the beautiful Sperrin Mountains and Lough Neagh.
Do you cook? What are you favourite foods?
I enjoy cooking but don’t expect to see me on MasterChef any time soon! I like to test my attempts at Indian and Italian cooking out on my family.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I have two young children so spare time is scarce. If I get a chance, motorcycling and music are my favourite way of spending some ‘me time’.
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