About the National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering
The National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering (NCEFE) is a cutting-edge facility with a vision to be internationally recognised for excellence in sustainable innovations for the global food system.
Since its launch in 2019, the Centre has focused on tackling food industry challenges such as productivity and sustainability through minimising waste and reducing energy use and addressing the health agenda through improved nutritional value of food. These innovations are essential if the sector is to grow and flourish.
Our expertise
NCEFE has expertise in:
- Automation and robotics
- Process control and simulation
- Food process engineering
- Energy engineering
- Waste valorisation
- Thermo-dynamics modelling
- Food rheology
- Product formulation
- Net zero systems
To achieve our mission to drive vitality, sustainability and growth in the global food system, we are delivering strategic research and innovation across four distinct research themes:
- Healthier lives
- Digital connectivity and technology
- Food system sustainability
- Feeding a growing population
Our open innovation space offers a ‘living lab’ approach to accelerated knowledge exchange and we have delivered impact across a range of knowledge exchange projects: NCEFE impact
In addition to being a centre of excellence for advanced food manufacturing, NCEFE is part of Hallam’s ‘Health Innovation Campus‘. The ambition for this is to unlock new external inward investment and create the most advanced cluster for health, wellbeing and sustainability in the world, building capacity in skills, research, innovation, business support and community engagement.
The interdisciplinary campus will focus on the entire human lifespan: from maternal, infant care and early years education to healthy and active ageing. It will integrate subject areas including health, care, biosciences, robotics, food engineering, nutrition, education, sport, social science, business, design and computing.
One of the challenges for innovation activity remains effective engagement with academic staff.
The AIMday Healthy and Sustainable Food theme provides significant potential for collaborations across disciplines that can solve strategic challenges identified locally and beyond.