The food research community in Australia and internationally has lost one of its most esteemed members following the death of Jack Kefford at the age of 95.

Vale: Jack Kefford 1917 – 2012

Jack Frederick Kefford was born in Melbourne on 8 February 1917 and received his early education at Essendon High School. He showed a keen aptitude for science, and prophetically one of his science teachers was Robert Withers, who was later to spend many years as Technical Secretary of the CSIRO Division of Food Research in Sydney. He subsequently studied chemistry at the University of Melbourne with a number of highly talented chemists who all had distinguished careers, including Keith Farrer, an Academy Fellow who passed away in June 2012 aged 96.

By the early age of 21 he had gained an MSc in chemistry, and in June 1938 he joined the (then) CSIR Section of Food Preservation laboratories within the Homebush abattoir as Assistant Research Officer. After initial work on chemical aspects of the preservation of meat and fish, he was transferred to the Canning Section. During his early years at CSIR/CSIRO pre- and post-war Kefford worked on a range of technical problems referred to the Division of Food Preservation and Transport by the Armed Services.  Former Chief of the Division,  Dr Jim Vickery, reported that Kefford’s “unselfishness and his ability to get the best out of junior research workers reacted against him at a time when personal advancement depended so much on the amount of published research work”.

He and his co-workers made a huge contribution to the development of processing and inspection specifications for many canned vegetable products. Ultimately these food control specifications were published as Commonwealth Food Specifications in 1951, and laboratory procedures led to technical memoranda on chemical and laboratory examinations of canned foods which were subsequently published in the Division’s Food Research Quarterly over many years.

Kefford not only had ability as a research supervisor but also as a communicator of technical knowledge, especially his teaching of many short courses on food technology during the war to Armed Services inspectors and government departments. For students at Sydney Technical College (STC) and workers in the food industry eager to learn more of the emerging discipline of food technology, he was one of the inspiring lecturers who provided talks in mid 1944 on Some Aspects of Food Technology, a series of 15 lectures held in the Chemistry Department of STC, the catalyst that led Dr Fritz Reuter to lobby for the transfer of the STC food technology diploma course to the NSW University of Technology (now The University of New South Wales) when it commenced in 1949.

Following the war Kefford was able to resume intense research activities with his colleague Dr Bruce Chandler on the bitterness and other quality problems of processed citrus juices, a problem identified during large-scale processing of citrus for the Armed Forces. Their work led to international recognition on the role of the bitter principle limonin on citrus juice quality.

The Division of Food Preservation expanded and flourished following the move to new laboratories and pilot plant at North Ryde in 1961, and in 1965 Kefford was appointed leader of the Food Technology Section (canning, freezing, dehydration, packaging). In 1967, after Dr Vickery’s retirement, he was appointed as an Assistant Chief (with Dr John Christian) of the Division of Food Research, with responsibility for seven sections relating to physical sciences and to technology. In 1970, when the Divisions of Food and Dairy Research were merged, he became the Officer-in-Charge of the largest (Sydney) laboratory, and also had responsibility for food laboratories at Hobart, Tasmania, Macquarie University and Gosford, NSW. In 1976 he joined the headquarters group as Assistant Chief (External Relations) to coordinate links with international bodies, and retired in 1982. He published over 90 papers.

One of Kefford’s external links was with the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST). He served on the IUFoST Executive from its establishment in Washington in1970, took over the running of the Education Committee, produced a world guide to courses in food science and technology, and then was elected as Secretary-General from 1978-87 where he was instrumental for much of the orderly growth and management of IUFoST’s affairs and activities.

Jack Kefford was among the group of chemists and technologists that agitated for the formation of an Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology, formed in 1967 and for which he was elected the third President (1971-73) following the terms of Vickery and Farrer. Aat the Inaugural Council and General Meetings in Shepparton in April 1967, he was elected unanimously as the first Executive Councillor. Previously he had been awarded the IFT Australian Award, the forerunner of the AIFST Award of Merit, in 1961; fittingly, his Award address was titled The profession of the food technologist.

During the past 45 years he had an extensive involvement with both the AIFST, and especially with the Institute’s journal Food Australia (previously Food Technology in Australia). He was the senior editor of Food Australia from 1988-97, and since that time until late 2011 he continued to play an invaluable role in reviewing and editing technical and research papers. The Jack Kefford Award for Best Paper published in Food Australia in the preceding year, was instituted by AIFST in 1993 to honour his contribution to food science and technology. In the last few years, together with his chemistry classmate Dr Keith Farrer and Em Professor Ken Buckle, he helped to document the history of AIFST in Birth of a Profession: A history of the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology published in 2010.

Jack Kefford was a Fellow of AIFST, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the International Academy of Food Science and Technology, and an Honorary Fellow of the UK and New Zealand Institutes of Food Science and Technology, and a mentor to many younger food scientists and technologists. He was a caring individual concerned for the welfare of others, who sacrificed his own research output for the overall benefit of the organisation.

Bess, his wife of 66 years, died in 2006. He is survived by children Roslyn, Carol, Rod and Rick and their partners, twelve grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren.

Ken Buckle, Barbara Munce and Ian Batey