The 43rd Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology Convention was held last week with a number of awards being presented to worthy winners. Most notably were the AIFST Food Industry Innovation Award, President's Award, Bruce Chandler Book Prize and Jack Kefford Award.

Preshafood Ltd has won the coveted Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology

(AIFST) Food Industry Innovation Award for the Preshafruit range of High Pressure

Processing (HHP) fruit juices. The main point of difference and advantage is that their

juices and fruit mixes are not heat pasteurised but rather pressurised cold using a

revolutionary technique, HHP.

This highly regarded award acknowledges a significant new development in a process,

product, ingredient, equipment or packaging, which has achieved successful commercial five years in any application prior to section of the Australian food industry for between six months and nomination.

The AIFST President's Award is made at the discretion of Council to an individual or an

organisation that has made an outstanding contribution to the Institute. It was awarded to Carly Cannon for her contributions to the South Australia Branch, including her

participation as a representative on the Council (Governing body) and her involvement in

the 2006 Annual AIFST Convention held in Adelaide.

The Bruce Chandler Book Prize is for AIFST members who are authors of a nominated

book published in the past six months to five years, and are judged to make the greatest

contribution to literature on food. It was made possible by a bequest by the late Dr Bruce

Chandler FAIFST in 2003. The award for 2010 was presented to Dr. Ailsa Hocking and Dr. John Pitt for their book Fungi and Food Spoilage (3rd edition) a publication that has the reputation as the foremost book on foodborne fungi.

The Jack Kefford Award is bestowed for the best paper published in Food Australia by an

AIFST member, in the preceding year. This award recognises the contribution to food

science and technology of members of the Institute who publish research and technical

papers. It is named in honour of Jack Kefford FAIFST, former Technical and Literature Editor of Food Australia. This year the award was won by Y Huang, A D Hocking, N Jensen, K C Richardson and D Miskelly for their paper "Microbiological quality of Australian breadcrumbs"', published in the December 2009 issue.