Illinois State’s new Foods Lab is preparing our students for jobs in the changing food industry.
One of them is senior Cody Whitehead. He was one of the first students to enroll in the new food and nutrition management program in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. Graduates of the program will become leaders at restaurants, hospitals, food companies, and grocery stores.
Whitehead will be ready to work in those places thanks in part to the new Foods Lab, which opened in fall 2015 in Turner Hall. It’s filled with commercial-quality equipment and state-of-the-art workstations.
“Every student I’ve talked to, we all love it,” Whitehead said.
The Foods Lab has six workstations and is lined with stainless steel equipment. All tables and prep carts are on rollers, so the lab can be rearranged to suit the various classes that use it. Cameras throughout allow instructors to display stations for all students to see on a large screen.
“We designed our new Foods Lab to take us from where we were—which was a home economics focus—to a modern, commercial food preparation facility,” said Todd McLoda, senior associate dean in the College of Applied Science and Technology.
Learn more about the new Foods Lab in the video above.
Contact STATEside’s editor at rmdenha@IllinoisState.edu.
