Functional confections course at Wisconsin’s ‘Candy School’

Growth in segment spurs repeat of educational program offered last year at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This spring the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Food Science will host a course titled, "Enhanced Confections: The ‘How To’ of Functional Confections."

The four-day course will run from March 21 – March 24, 2016 and is designed to instruct technical, production, research and managerial personnel in the confectionery technology field. Professionals looking to gain knowledge about successful manufacturing of functional candies are advised to enroll.

“The course was a big hit with attendees from both food and pharmaceutical companies in 2015 and is being held again in response to the increase in consumer products in the ‘healthy eating’ space,”says Pat Huffman, Confectionery Education Advisory Board moderator.

Instructors will provide an overview of fortification materials and the confections most commonly used to deliver them. The course then focuses on how these components affect normal candy making procedures. Other topics will include regulatory, color and flavor issues as well as packaging and shelf life.

Learning from industry experts, participants will gain hands-on laboratory experience with the most important functional candies. Lectures and experimental pilot plant exercises are presented and supervised by an outstanding group of technical experts from the confectionery industry and the UW Food Science Department. Classes and laboratory exercises will be held in Babcock Hall on the UW/Madison campus.

For more information and registration details, visit the University of Wisconsin-Madison's website.

With more than 30 years experience in B-to-B reporting, writing and editing — the bulk of which was dedicated to covering the bakery, confectionery and snack industries — Pacyniak has chronicled changes within the food industry since the early 1980s. A Boston University journalism degree graduate, he worked for a variety of publications before joining BNP Media in 1994 as editor of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery magazine. In 2001, he took over as editor-in-chief of Candy Industry until 2018.