Rate My Professor Patrick Silcock

Patrick Silcock is Research Associate Professor and Manager of the Product Development Research Centre in the Department of Food Science at the University of Otago. He earned his BCApSc degree from the University of Otago. As manager of the PDRC, he oversees commercially focused research and consultancy services that apply food science knowledge to enhance products and provide competitive advantages for clients. These include small to medium-sized enterprises, cooperatives, and multinational companies in New Zealand, Australia, South East Asia, China, the USA, and Europe. His professional specialties lie in food chemistry, product development, shelf life extension and calculation, food spoilage, and general food consultancy. Silcock maintains strong industry links and collaborates with Food Science academic staff and other university researchers on project-specific work.

Silcock's research centres on food quality, exploring consumer-defined quality in relation to sensory characteristics, manufacturing processes, food composition, and structure. He studies microbially-induced flavour generation by bacteria, yeast, and mould in fermented foods like beer and wine, and during spoilage. His work employs volatile characterisation and sensory methodologies to track flavour perception changes and contributes to food waste reduction strategies within the University of Otago's Food Waste Innovation research theme. Notable publications include 'Audible sound decreased beer fermentation time with minimal effects on the abundance of volatile organic compound production' (Food Research International, 2025), 'The use of proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS) to determine the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by different lactic acid bacterial strains growing in defined media' (Applied Microbiology, 2025), 'Emerging evidence on the potential of PTR-MS as rapid, direct and high-sensitivity sensors to promote innovation in the fermented beverages sector' (International Journal of Food Science & Technology, 2024), and highly cited papers such as 'Bacillus Spores in the Food Industry: A Review on Resistance and Response to Novel Inactivation Technologies' (Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 2016) and 'Effect of extraction method on functional properties of flaxseed protein concentrates' (Food Chemistry, 2017). His 148 publications have accumulated over 3,700 citations.