Lynne McLandsborough of the College of Natural Sciences's Department of Food Science 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.