Research Projects

Shelley Fox

Current PhD Student

Circular eating: Revalorisation of food waste for the production of healthy, nutritionally-dense and sensory-acceptable food products

Research Project:

Recent reports estimate that approximately a third of all food produced globally for human consumption is either lost or wasted from farm to the fork. The latest findings show that 70% of food is lost at home while 30% is lost during production and processing. 1.6 billion tonnes of food is wasted and almost 80% of this is edible. This project will focus on the Fruit and Vegetable production sector. The main objectives are to test consumer perception towards sustainable eating, to review the waste produced along the supply chain of fruit and vegetables, and to develop novel food products from this waste material, testing their sensory acceptability and nutritional profile.

Shelley Fox graduated from Letterkenny IT in 1996 with a Diploma in Food Science and Nutrition, went on to complete a BSc in Food Technology with Glasgow Caledonian University. She worked in the Food Industry for 9 years in Technical and Product Development roles prior to joining St Angela’s Food Technology Centre (SAFTC) in 2006. SAFTC was based on the campus of St Angela’s College, Sligo and provided customised food technology solutions from concept development to commercialisation for innovative food/ beverage companies.  They worked predominately with SME’s in the prepared consumer foods/beverage sector. During her time with SAFTC as a Food Technologist, Shelley’s projects focused on shelf life studies, nutritional analysis and legal labelling, innovative NPD and sensory analysis funded with EI Innovation Vouchers. She managed the Sensory Analysis Services utilising their sensory suite and FIZZ Biosystèmes. Shelley completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Sensory Science through the University of Nottingham in 2018. SAFTC were one of 10 partners in the FIRM funded Sensory Network of Ireland. Shelley was also a member of the Plant and Agri-Bioscience Centre (PACB) in the Martin Ryan Institute, NUI Galway. Shelley also collaborated on projects with researchers in IT Sligo, University of Limerick and Teagasc, Moorepark.  During her time in SAFTC She supervised dissertation students, delivered Sensory Analysis and HACCP workshops to Industry, delivered workshops in Food labelling and Sensory Analysis on Springboard Courses and more recently conducted NPD tutorials/mentoring final year students in the Bachelor Applied, Food and Business Management course in St Angela’s College, Sligo.

Papers

Garvey E.C, Sanders T, O’Callaghan T.F, Drake M.A, Fox S, O’Sullivan M.G, Kerry J.P, Kilcawley K.N (2020) “A cross-cultural evaluation of liking and perception of salted butter produced from different feed systems” Food, 9, 1767 doi:10.3390

Redfern S, Dermiki M, Fox S, Lordan R, Shiels K, Kumar Shaha S, Tsoupras A, Zabetakis I, (2021) “The effects of cooking salmon sous vide on its antithrombotic properties, lipid profile and sensory characteristics” Food Research International, 139, 109976