Making a splash in the food and drink industry

Krish’s interest in the food and drink industry developed during his undergraduate degree, through which he also managed to gain real-world experience at a big name in the sector during his placement year:  

During my time at Loughborough, I studied a Food Engineering module which gave me a great insight into the fundamentals of common food-based processes such as canning, freeze-drying and frying. Through this, I was able to see how the theory is directly applied to industry, and the products we see and consume on a regular basis.  

This inspired me to pursue a placement in the food and beverage sector, where I did a 12-month placement at Jacobs Douwe Egberts, who make Kenco, L’Or and Tassimo coffee. Here, I worked as a Process Engineer and saw first-hand how the topics of freeze-drying and spray-drying were used to make instant coffee. From this experience, I was sure that I wanted to continue my career in this industry. Now, I rely on other modules from my degree such as Mixing of Fluids and Particles, Product Design and Reaction Engineering to create all sorts of new soft drinks.

Krish, who has an MEng in Chemical Engineering, has since been given responsibility for project managing new product developments whilst at Britvic. He oversees the whole development and manufacturing process, whilst working with marketing and finance colleagues, to ensure that any new creations meet consumers’ needs and are produced efficiently: 

The steps in creating a new drink are extensive; a typical project will be 9-12 months from concept to launch, through which I oversee the whole project. I am involved in setting a brief with the Brands and Insights team and then creating prototypes in the lab. As the product developer, I work closely with the Brands and Insights teams to decide on the product specifications such as total cost and minimum juice content, as well as research the current flavour trends for our target market. Once the brief has more detail, I will go into our development lab and work on choosing the best blend of juices, flavours and colours to make various prototypes – all of which are slightly different but fit the brief.  

We then take the best prototypes and blind test them with consumers to narrow down the best liquid. I will then test the liquid in our pilot plant (a scaled down version of the factory process) to set the final recipe that the factories will use for launch. When approved, I work with the project team to lock in our formulation and begin ordering materials. For the first factory production, I will attend and check that the liquid is made just as the recipe says and then taste the product to ensure it tastes just as it did during the initial development. Once I give the thumbs up, the liquid is sent to the packaging line to be bottled or canned which happens at ferocious speeds – bottles at 45,000 - 55,000 per hour, cans at 120,000 per hour!

I will admit to going to the shops on launch day to see how my new products look on shelf and maybe buying a couple of bottles of each! After my friends and family found out that I created and launched the new Tango Dark Berry and Robinsons Double Concentrate, they made sure to go buy some, and it was great hearing that they loved both drinks. 

We work hard over the entire project to get the product on the shelf, so nothing beats the sense of pride you get seeing the finished product in the shops and seeing it in people’s trollies!

As chemical engineers, we are the experts in process and understand best how the equipment in our pilot plant or full-scale factories work. This allows us to work on supply chain projects through which we help to save on energy and water usage. 

In the next five years I see myself using my knowledge and experience of soft drinks and technical background from my degree to make significant improvements in our supply chain. I want to be a pioneer of making our supply chain the most cost efficient and environmentally friendly in the sector, with new processes that maximise yield, ensuring that we only use the water we need, and keep our carbon footprint low.