Role Description
This position is ideal for someone eager to produce new knowledge and contribute meaningfully to a sustainable and innovative future in fresh produce.
Westfalia Fruit is a leading multinational supplier of fresh fruit and related value-added products, commanding 52% of the global avocado market. With over 75 years as a trusted of expertise, Westfalia Fruit operates extensive plantations and breeding programs across Africa, North America, and Latin America. Through a vertically integrated supply chain, Westfalia Fruit grows, sources, ripens, packs, processes, and markets quality avocados & fresh produce – 365 days a year and globally.
With the largest avocado-growing footprint in the world, Westfalia Fruit is recognised as the leading #avoexperts, and considered the supplier of choice to both retail and wholesale customers whom they serve from sales offices in the UK, Europe, North America, Latin America, and Southern Africa.
An exciting opportunity has arisen to work as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Associate on a 36-month collaborative project between Westfalia Fruit UK Limited and Cranfield University.
This project aims to reduce postharvest loss and waste by enhancing Westfalia's supply chain through an innovative, environmentally friendly, and sustainability-driven systems approach, starting with maturity indexing, coatings, postharvest disease control, storage, ripening, and packaging solutions.
About the Role
In this role, the KTP Associate will work closely with the team and the academic team at to develop sustainable methods for reducing postharvest loss and waste by optimising storage and extending the shelf life of avocado fruit throughout the supply chain, from harvest to the final consumer.
The role includes carrying out fundamental postharvest bioscience and technology research related to the UKRI Innovate UK-funded Cranfield-Westfalia KTP project on avocado postharvest management practices. You will be i) developing country- and cultivar-specific avocado maturity indexing, postharvest treatments, and ripening protocols; ii) undertaking avocado postharvest storage trials and evaluating fruit physiology; iii) using analytical techniques to quantify biochemical changes during avocado maturation and ripening; and iv) developing standardised, scientifically proven postharvest management strategies for implementation across the Westfalia Fruit’s global operations in seventeen countries.
You will be part of a multidisciplinary academic team of postharvest physiologists, plant scientists, and industry stakeholders, including farm managers, quality control personnel, packhouse managers, export certification bodies, technicians, ripening specialists, and specialist technicians in analytical chemistry, and mycology.
About You
You will be educated to first-degree (2:1 or first) level in plant sciences (or relevant subject) with a preference for candidates holding an MSc or PhD in these fields. You will have research experience in fundamental postharvest biology, postharvest technology, food loss, food waste, and mathematical modelling. With excellent communication skills, you will have expertise in designing and undertaking field, and laboratory postharvest storage trials. You will have proven experience in analytical technologies (i.e. HPLC, LC/MS) and data analysis (Genstat, R, or other machine learning tools) and interpretation. Spanish language skills are desirable but not essential.
Additional Requirements are willingness and ability to travel, as the role involves time at Cranfield University and Westfalia Fruit sites, including locations outside the UK.
About Us
As a specialist postgraduate university, Cranfield’s world-class expertise, large-scale facilities, and unrivalled industry partnerships are creating leaders in technology and management globally. Learn more about Cranfield and our unique impact .
As a KTP Associate, you will be based at UK Limited in Spalding and will work closely with the academic team at Cranfield University in the .
The Cranfield Postharvest Research Group is one of the largest and best-equipped laboratories worldwide, providing mechanistic understanding and innovative technology to reduce food loss and waste. Find out more about our work .
Our Values and Commitments
Our shared, stated values help to define who we are and underpin everything we do: Ambition; Impact; Respect; and Community. Find out more .
We aim to create and maintain a culture in which everyone can work and study together and realise their full potential. We are a Disability Confident Employer and proud members of the Stonewall Diversity Champions Programme. We are committed to actively exploring flexible working options for each role and have been ranked in the Top 30 family friendly employers in the UK by the charity . Find out more about our key commitments to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Flexible Working .
Working Arrangements
Collaborating and connecting are integral to so much of what we do. Our Working Arrangements Framework provides many staff with the opportunity to flexibly combine on-site and remote working, where job roles allow, balancing the needs of our community of staff, students, clients and partners.
Eligibility
An individual currently or previously employed by Westfalia Fruit, would not be eligible for the KTP Associate role.
Individuals who have already been a KTP Associate would not be considered an ideal candidate.
