Chocolate Engineer
Personal Connection
- Do you love chocolate?
- Do you want to find out what goes into the process of making candy?
- Are you interested in building systems and machines that help in the candy-making process?
- Are you good at thinking of unique ways to solve problems?
Other Connections
STEM Connection
Chocolate's familiar and beloved texture is determined by rheological properties which are carefully studied:
3D printing technology opens the way for innovation in chocolate making:
It takes sophisticated techniques to determine the fat content, which is essential in assessing the quality of chocolate:
Journeys to Becoming a Chocolate Engineer
Chocolate engineers are first and foremost food engineers, and by understanding the industry in general, they can narrow their focus to an area of interest, such as chocolate. At least, that's what Aditya Josyula (A.J.), the senior process development engineer for Mars, the candy company, did.
A.J. grew up in India and learned from his father, who had studied food engineering himself, that the country's food production and distribution systems were inefficient. This spurred an interest in young A.J. to learn about food technology, which eventually led him to a degree in food engineering and technology. He also went a step further and received a master's degree in food science. With these qualifications and a great deal of knowledge about the food production industry, he worked his way into candy production with Mars.
His job role is simple: travel to all the places where Mars wants to set up factories and get the equipment up and running while adhering to safety standards. He also gets to eat as much chocolate as he wants (it's part of the testing process!)
Read more about A.J.'s story here:
Read about two friends with engineering degrees who started a chocolatier business:
Lala Selvaraj owns Two Friends Chocolates with her best friend, Neethu Viswanath. These best friends and business partners are both from India and received their master's degrees in engineering in the United Kingdom. While in the U.K., they traveled extensively, sampling chocolates at every stop. Little did they know that in the future, they would be the proud owners of a chocolate business.
Years later, they both married, and Neethu moved to Canada and Lala, the United States. One year, Lala wanted to send her best friend some chocolates for her birthday but could not find the quality they had sampled in Europe. So, she made her own hand-rolled truffles. "It was so good she didn't even know that I made it," Selvaraj said. And from that homemade gift, a business was born!