Food Accelerator Program

Bob serves as Senior Quality Assurance & Technical Specialist at the Rutgers Food Innovation Center, and provides leadership over the USDA- and FDA-inspected processing facility at the FIC, that enables design, development, analysis, commercialization and manufacture of value-added food products for sale to retail and foodservice markets.  Bob oversees production planning, process development, production management, facility maintenance, and operational and quality compliance for all of FIC’s client manufacturing projects.  Bob is also responsible for the implementation of advanced sanitation and quality assurance strategies for food manufacturing, including the Food Protection Program, and he develops Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s and SSOP’s) as needed for the FIC and for its processing clients, and interacts with all regulatory authorities (including USDA, FDA, Rutgers REHS, NJ Department of Health, and various county departments of health).

Bob has over 40 years of experience in the food industry, and has worked with a wide array of prepared food products, including fruit and cream pies, frozen breaded fish, fresh and canned mushrooms, steak sauce, pasta sauce, tomato processing, fresh pasta, frozen pasta, meat entrees, meatballs in sauce, acidified foods, fruit syrups, caramel syrups and potato chips. Bob also has hands on experience in various thermal-processing types including canning (metal & glass); retorts (static, rotating and continuous); tube-in tube; hot fill & hold; modified atmosphere in flexible packaging; and rigid containers.

Bob received an A.S. in Food & Dairy Science from the State University of New York and a B.S. in Food Science from Delaware Valley College. He is certified in HACCP, is a Safe Quality Food (SQF) Practitioner, and he has completed the Better Process Control School (Penn State). He has also developed various levels of Quality Systems and Supplier Certification Programs and has conducted Organic, GMP, HACCP and Supplier Approval Audits in the United States, Canada, Mexico and South America.