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Technology in Australia 1788-1988Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
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Table of Contents

Chapter 2

I Technology Transported; 1788-1840

II Technology Established; 1840-1940

III The Coming Of Science
i Education for Food Technology
ii Research Institutes

IV From Science To Technology: The Post-war Years

V Products And Processes

VI Conclusion

VII Acknowledgements

References

Index
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The Coming Of Science (continued)

Most early Australian work in food science was directed at solving problems associated with our burgeoning exports in food products; meat, dairy products and fruit. Australian frozen meat was at a serious disadvantage compared with chilled meat from the Argentine, butter required the use of boracic acid as a preservative, and sometimes whole shipments of fruit were dumped because of brown rot or bitter pit. The formation in 1916 by the Commonwealth Government of the Advisory Council of Science and Industry was a first step towards official help with solutions to these and similar problems. It was succeeded by the Institute of Science and Industry and, finally, in 1926 the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was established. The earlier Advisory Council and Institute made a slow start, largely because of inadequate funding but CSIR was more firmly based in every way and at the very beginning included in its five main groups of problems for study the 'preservation of foodstuffs, especially cold storage'. But some work had already begun.[119] The Advisory Council

considered that research was urgently needed to improve the keeping quality of milk and butter, to seek a remedy for squirter disease of bananas, and to find ways of overcoming rots in eggs and fruits placed in cold storage to meet out-of-season demands in Australia.[120]

Other problems then regarded as important read strangely today; milk of such poor quality that it caused concern in Sydney and Melbourne and would not keep refrigerated long enough on passenger liners outward bound from Australia, and the need for fast rising doughs to overcome discontent at the long hours in the baking industry. The Council shelved the whole question of cold storage until the proper facilities for its study should become available. The Institute also was poorly funded but was able to support some investigations. More important, however, was its interaction with the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge, its association with surveys and reports related to the future of food research in this country, and the consolidation later of its food work with studies on meat freezing and on the refrigerated storage of fruit.

The Australian National Research Council had appointed a Meat Freezing Committee in 1921 and in 1924 studies were begun in the Biochemistry Department of the University of Melbourne under the direction of Associate Professor W. J. Young. G. A. Cook and J. R. Vickery worked on 'drip' and made considerable progress. In 1926 Vickery became one of the first batch of CSIR scholarship holders to go abroad for training. He already held an Exhibition of 1851 Scholarship and went to Cambridge to complete a Ph.D. degree. Later, as Chief of the Division of Food Research, he became an international figure in food science and technology.

Planning and negotiation for the future of food research in CSIR went on for some years. The story has been well told in the history of the Division of Food Research.[121] It is one of lack of money, perhaps wrong directions, some doubts about the best way to proceed and even uncertainty of the number one priority. There was also the absence of any available scientist of the calibre seen to be necessary for appointment as chief of a division, which is no surprise; food science qua food science was too new to have produced such men and, perhaps, too new to be fully comprehended by the CSIR leadership. In the event, Vickery returned to Australia early in March 1931 to become Officer-in-Charge of cold storage investigations. In August of that year the Section of Food preservation was officially constituted and meat and fruit work began.


Organisations in Australian Science at Work - Advisory Council of Science and Industry; Australian National Research Council Meat Freezing Committee; CSIRO; Division of Food Research; University of Melbourne

People in Bright Sparcs - Cook, G. A; Vickery, J. R.; Young, Assoc. Prof. W. J.

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