Dr Ganiyat Olatundeam is an Associate Professor of Food Quality Control and Assurance. Her first degree is BSc Honours in Chemistry. She holds two MSc degrees; the first is in Industrial Chemistry and the other in Food Quality Control and Assurance. She holds a PhD degree in Food Quality Control and Assurance.
Her research activities focused on quality of foods as influenced by a combination of chemical composition of raw materials and processing methods. This is with a view to establish raw material requirements for optimal product quality. She particularly focused on chemical and nutritional composition, functional properties, and sensory attributes that determine consumer acceptance. She worked on commodities that Nigeria has a comparative advantage with respect to production; these include sweetpotato (SP), sorghum, banana & plantain. Dr Olatunde investigated the influence of drying, frying, baking, malting and extrusion on quality of products. Most of her studies have been on SP, a crop that has been globally recognised as having the potential to solve the problem of household and national food and nutritional security in Sub-Saharan Africa, due to its agronomic and nutritional potentials.
Dr Olatunde has authored or co-authored 29 journal articles, 22 peer-reviewed conference proceedings and 5 technical reports. Her current research interests include mathematical modelling in relation to food quality and food acceptability (particularly application of chemometrics and sensometrics to process and product optimisation); Quality assurance systems involving sensory and consumer measures.
At the undergraduate level, Dr Olatunde teaches courses covering Introduction to Food Science and Technology, Sensory evaluation of Foods, Basic Food Chemistry, Principles of Food Analysis, Chemical and Instrumental Analysis of Foods, Fats and Oils Technology, and Food packaging. At the Postgraduate levels, she teach Food Chemistry and Biochemistry, Food Chemical Toxicology, Sensory analysis and Food Laws and Legislation.
Dr Olatunde has supervised 61 BSc, supervised or co-supervised 18 MSc and 1 PhD research projects in food science and related fields. She has been an External Examiner of MSc and PhD thesis for the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She has taken part in some commissioned projects including the ‘Sweetpotato for Health and Wealth in Nigeria’ project during which she worked with SMEs to develop technology and establish quality requirements for baked and fried products, incorporating provitamin A-rich SP varieties. These food products are currently being commercialized by private enterprises. Her research and publications have addressed the multi-faceted dimensions of food quality such as process-oriented, product-oriented and consumer-oriented quality.
Dr Olatunde is actively engaged in special assignments and community services within and outside the University. She is the current Acting Head of Department of Food Science and Technology at Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB); Chairman, Western Chapter of Nigerian Institute of Food Science and Technology (NIFST); Member of South African Association for Food Science and Technology (SAAFoST); Vice-Chairperson, Orange-fleshed Sweetpotato Support Platform in Nigeria; Member of Marketing, Processing and Utilisation Community of Practice of the Sweetpotato for Profit and Health Initiative in Africa; and Executive Member, African Network for Sensory Evaluation Research (ANSWER) and the Sensometrics Society.
