Jane Farnham, a senior food science major at the University of Delaware, worked with the Turkey Hill quality assurance team to check the consistency of each ice cream.

A sweet way to apply food science

Article by Nya Wynn Photos courtesy of Jane Farnham May 13, 2024

UD undergraduate student works with Turkey Hill research and development team to create new ice cream flavor

Jane Farnham, a senior at the University of Delaware, always loved to cook and bake. Growing up on a horse farm, she would spend evenings preparing dinner while her mom and sisters tended to the horses.

“My sisters cannot cook to save their lives, so I would make dinner for everybody so that when they came in after taking care of the farm there would be dinner ready,” Farnham said. “I just found a love for food and cooking through that.”

Farnham spent her time experimenting with ingredients and the composition of the creations she cooked, curious about what would happen when she made different changes in a recipe. She wasn’t sure how this could translate into a career — until she had a defining conversation with one of her aunts, a food stylist.

“She asked me, ‘Have you ever thought about food science?’ because I had no idea what I wanted to do when I went into college,” Farnham recalled. “I looked it up and I found that [UD] had a really good program.”

Now a senior food science major, Farnham’s hard work has so far culminated into a summer internship with Turkey Hill, a globally known dairy company headquartered in Pennsylvania. Farnham worked as a research and development intern under the head of research and development and the head food scientists to create a brand new ice cream flavor for the company.

“They wanted to create a new ice cream flavor and gave me the project,” Farnham said. “I learned about the production process and how to actually get different flavors using the mixes and all the inclusions and variegates.”

Farnham and her Turkey Hill colleagues created Brookie Trio’politan™., which features three sweet slices — a brownie batter flavor, a sweet cream flavor with cookie swirl, and a milk chocolate flavor with brownie inclusions. The new flavor hits grocery stores this semester and is being mass produced for sale across the country.

In addition to creating Brookie Trio’politan™., Farnham also participated in other small projects throughout the summer.

“The Brookie ice cream flavor was my main project, but I also worked on adding a new variegate to one of the current ice creams that they have and changing the concentrations of different ingredients,” Farnham said. “It was mostly lab work and really just tasting and testing the actual ice cream.”

Farnham’s internship required countless hours of taste-testing and lots of trial and error in order to achieve the perfect flavor.

Farnham samples an ice cream cut with Turkey Hill head food scientist Bill Krzan.

“We look at the UDairy Creamery and think it must be easy to make ice cream, but it’s really not,” said Kali Kniel, professor of microbial food safety who teaches courses like Food For Thought (ANFS 102) and Foodborne Diseases: Outbreak Investigation (ANFS 230). “Because of the freezing characteristics and how the crystals taste in your mouth, you need to make it perfect, really.”

According to Kniel, students looking to pursue research and development in food science must push through the frustration of trying again and again until they achieve the best product.

“Jane is very suited to food science because she’ll persevere,” said Kniel, who is Farnham’s academic advisor. “Ice cream is not a very forgiving matrix. Little changes make a huge impact, and when you slightly mess up, there’s a noticeable difference.”

In this field, perseverance pays off. Because of their applied science skillset and the appetite to hire food scientists, UD food science majors students have a 100% job placement rate in the careers of their choosings.

This internship experience encouraged Farnham to stay in the research and development sector of food science, as well as hone in on the food science skills she’s developed as a UD undergraduate student.

Farnham especially noted how much she enjoyed Kniel’s Food Microbiology (ANFS 439/639) course for food science majors.

“You learn about all these organisms in the lecture and then really apply it by making actual food products in the lab section,” Farnham said.

These burgeoning food scientists study all the different microorganisms that can be in food, from disease-causing microbes to ones that are vital for food production.

“We have labs where we work on the laboratory basics for microbiology, such as enumeration of bacteria,” Kniel said. “We usually relate those techniques to certain regulations that are within the United States for food supply, and then look at different testing strategies.

The students also study fermentation and make, for example, kimchi by following the microbial community as it changes during the fermentation process.

Though food science can sometimes be unforgiving and extremely complex, it can also be very rewarding.

“A few weeks ago I was in Food Lion, and the flavor was there on the shelves. I was crying because I spent my whole summer working on this project,” Farnham said. “I put my blood, sweat and tears into this, so it’s just crazy that it's now a real food product that people can buy.”