Plenty of opportunities at Corbion

Laura Vilches Bazaga is a Food Application Technologist at Corbion. She recently attended the Young IFFI event and gave a presentation during a visit of WUR students to Corbion. “I talked to them about the career opportunities in the food industry after graduation. I would have appreciated hearing more about the possibilities while I was studying, so I felt it was important to share this with the students. After my studies, I wasn’t very familiar with the food ingredients industry. That’s why I also showed them where our products can be found.”

Laura is from Spain, she studied in Barcelona. She interned at Centac in Spain, where she worked as a food technician for a short time. “In Spain, food safety and hygiene are key themes. That was also the focus of my job at Centac, where I gave advise to small food companies.” She got in touch with Corbion and was given the opportunity to do an eight-month traineeship there. “I worked on various topics within food technology, including food applications, microbiology, and modelling. I dealt with areas such as preservation for the meat industry.”

She enjoyed the traineeship, after which she started as a Food Microbiology Technician. “Here too, I worked on various innovation driven and customer projects, including improving product shelf life, assessing the efficacy of Corbion products, modelling, and giving training sessions and presentations to customers.” She has now been working as a Food Application Technologist for almost two years. “In this role, everything comes together: I support the customer on which Corbion ingredients to use to meet their needs and how taking into consideration the microbial point of view without compromising / improving the sensorial parameters of the products (taste, texture, etc)..”

Laura finds Corbion a pleasant company to work for. “The atmosphere is good, and people are positive. As an employee, you get plenty of opportunities for development, Each year, a staff party or outing is organized, and my relationship with my colleagues is good. I work in an international environment with some other young colleagues. I pretty much enjoy to live and work in the Netherlands, the work-life balance and also found very important to be integrated to the culture.

Networking is important in the food industry, and Laura appreciates IFFI’s efforts in this regard. “The Young IFFI Event was very successful. I particularly enjoyed the generational theatre; it highlighted the strengths from each generation and the importance to collaborate with colleagues from different generations to achieve common goals. I also found it interesting to see current topics being addressed, especially seeing how everyone approaches these themes from their own perspective. Someone from sales can see things differently than a food technologist which is enrichful. The event really made me realize that companies and employees from this sector we need to keep working together. We, as young professionals, have the opportunity to contribute to tackle current and future issues of the food sector together with the experienced professionals.”

Laura Vilches Bazaga
Food Application Technologist at Corbion