By Jessie Seyfer From the easily harvested "square" tomatoes of the '60s to the genetically engineered tomatoes of the '90s, UC Davis has always been a leader in the field of food processing. But before such advances reach market shelves for consumers to enjoy, they often undergo rigorous analysis at the Cruess Hall food pilot plant. This boot camp for food processing is a warehouse-like facility that takes up an entire wing of Cruess Hall, and on any given day, it is noisy with activity, with machinery humming and clanging from every corner. Even during the lazy days of summer, food science students can be found testing out new steam-peeling techniques on vegetables, while further back in the plant, a physicist analyzes food data from a giant magnetic resonance imaging machine. The 40-year-old facility is actually at its busiest during the summer, when outside companies as well as university researchers use its canners, evaporators and other equipment to find the best way to process the year's harvest. At least 20 different outside companies from all over California utilize the plant for research and development every year. "It's a teaching tool for food scientists and also a research tool that's used for a lot of small-scale projects for industry," said department manager Teri Wolcott. "An advantage to being small-scale here is that we can do a lot of studies on a trial basis that they can't do in a huge processing facility." For Pat Fehling, a food scientist and consultant to several top-name food companies, carrying out these small-scale studies is also a sound business decision. "A lot of research departments within corporations will be looking at new processing systems, but they're not going to go out and buy an $80,000 laboratory pilot plant unless they have tested their product," she said. "They can use the pilot plant for research and not have that capital outlay for equipment." Through the years, tomato processors especially have used the pilot plant to determine the best kinds of tomatoes for their products. As Wolcott explains, "Manufacturers look for completely different qualities in their paste tomatoes than in the tomatoes you see at the market. For example, sometimes they don't want them to be as juicy as market tomatoes. They look at consistency and taste, and for pastes they want sturdier tomatoes because they're subject to 'abuse' by the machines that process them. We can look at all those qualities at the food plant." In addition to testing different processing and preserving techniques, companies also benefit from technology developed from university research. The magnetic resonance imaging machine, which is similar to the kind hospitals use to visualize internal organs, is one device that university researchers believe will be a valuable asset to processing plants in the future. Assistant research physicist Jeff Walton explained what food processing could possibly have in common with a machine that uses magnetic rays to form images of objects: "In addition to imaging foods to see whether they are internally bruised or frozen, we do imaging of flowing fluids--rheology," he said. "Since foods are often cooked as they flow through pipes, we can see how to make sure that foods flow so they don't get overcooked on the edges of the pipe or undercooked in the middle. "There are some people who want to put the machines on assembly lines," he said. "In Japan, for example, where watermelons run $35-$40 apiece, they want to use them to see if there are any bad spots inside the melons. It may cost a lot but it's certainly a worthy investment there." For food scientist Fehling, the link to the university is an attractive feature for many of her industry clients. "With the availability of research information at the university, there's a synergy between what my clients want to do and what the university is doing," she said. "To be on the cutting edge, as they say, is great too." The department, in fact, is submitting proposals to significantly upgrade the plant infrastructure to support additional state-of-the-art equipment, Wolcott says. Fehling looks forward to more sophisticated facilities for product development. "Thirty years ago the pilot plant was the prime facility for vegetable processing in California," said. "But now we're looking at more complicated products; they're concentrated or blended or they have more additives, and in some ways Davis is still set up for that former time." However, as witnessed by the plant's year-round schedule--more than $125,000 worth of research was done during last summer alone--companies still find the plant extremely useful. "People are always looking for more convenient food, food with a longer shelf life, more nutritional food," said Wolcott. "They're going to have to eat, and they're going to look for better and cheaper things to eat, so there's always going to be a demand for the kind of studies that go on here." Jessie Seyfer, a physiology major, is a former writing intern for the News Service.