UMass Amherst Food Scientist Lynne McLandsborough Awarded 2024 Mahoney Life Sciences Prize
University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientist Lynne McLandsborough has won the 2024 Mahoney Life Sciences Prize for her research that offers a solution to a sticky sanitation and food safety dilemma hounding the peanut butter and chocolate industries.
“I was really surprised and excited,” McLandsborough says of winning the prize. “I think our research is innovative and there’s a need in the industry. It was a fun project.”
She is already in talks with Mars, the world’s largest chocolate manufacturer, and J.M. Smucker, the owner of Jif peanut butter, to test her novel “dry” sanitation method in peanut butter and chocolate pilot plant facilities, and she has filed a patent application on the innovation.
You don’t have to be a commercial candy bar producer to know how tough it is to clean low-moisture foods like peanut butter and liquid chocolate off utensils, bowls and kitchen equipment. The sticky mess happens because of the high-fat content of those foods and the chemical reality that water and oil don’t mix.
“Outbreaks of salmonellosis associated with low-moisture foods are a persistent problem,” says McLandsborough, who, in addition to her role as professor, also serves as the interim associate vice chancellor for research and engagement and interim director of the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (CAFE).
Her lab’s discovery holds promise to make sanitizing facilities processing low-moisture foods more efficient while improving food safety and reducing bacterial illness outbreaks.
Richard Mahoney, former CEO and chairman of Monsanto, expressed his enthusiasm for the Mahoney Life Sciences Prize and McLandsborough’s breakthrough. “We are thrilled to champion the innovative research led by UMass researchers. It is crucial to bridge scientific discoveries with industrial applications to address pressing challenges and improve lives.
“Dr. McLandsborough’s research exemplifies this mission and has the potential to revolutionize food safety nationally and globally. The extraordinary advancements at UMass Amherst continually position the university as a premier research institution on the world stage,” says Mahoney, who along with his brothers, Robert and William, established the Mahoney Prize in 2018.
The Mahoney brothers received their chemistry degrees from UMass Amherst and went on to become leaders in their own industries. They have served as high-level alumni advisers to UMass Amherst and as mentors to students.
The annual competition seeks scientists in the College of Natural Sciences (CNS) who are engaged in high-impact life sciences research that addresses a significant challenge and advances collaboration between researchers and industry. Following a review by an expert panel of life-science-industry scientists and executives, the $25,000 prize is awarded to one CNS faculty member who is the principal author of peer-reviewed research that meets the goals of the Mahoney Life Sciences Prize.
McLandsborough’s winning research paper was published in April 2023 in the journal Microbiology Spectrum. Facilities processing low-moisture foods “dry” clean the equipment followed by hot oil flushing, which removes residues in processing lines but doesn’t kill bacteria like Salmonella. That bacteria exhibits higher heat resistance in high-fat and low-water environments.