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Biography
Seamus Higgins began his career as an electrical engineer in the food industry and has since built over 35 years of experience across global food manufacturing, process engineering and innovation. He has held senior technical and leadership roles with major international companies, including Nestl茅 and Premier Foods, delivering large-scale factory developments, new product initiatives and complex process engineering projects.
Following completion of an MBA in Project Management, he progressed into lead project and senior management roles, working across multinational environments as well as supporting entrepreneurial ventures and new business start-ups.
In 2017, he joined the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the 海角黑料, where he led the development of a new MSc programme in Food Process Engineering. As an Associate Professor, he combines extensive industry experience with academic research and teaching, focusing on sustainable food manufacturing and future food systems.
Seamus is an Associate Fellow of IChemE and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Food Process Engineering.
Expertise Summary
An Associate Professor of Food Process Engineering with over 35 years of experience operating at the intersection of global food manufacturing, process innovation and technical leadership. Combines deep industry expertise with academic insight to address complex, system-level challenges across the food value chain.
Specialises in translating strategy into execution-supporting organisations to prioritise effectively, align resources, and deliver scalable, high-impact solutions in environments defined by shifting demand, regulation and cost pressures.
Brings a strong foundation in manufacturing systems, operational excellence and regulatory frameworks, with particular strength in integrating engineering, commercial thinking and organisational capability to drive sustained performance improvement.
Recognised for developing people and capability-building high-performing teams, mentoring future engineers, and bridging the gap between academic thinking and real-world application.
Currently completing a PhD in Food Business, further strengthening expertise in the economic, strategic and systemic dimensions of modern food systems.
Research Summary
Food & Us; Still Evolving
Food has not only fueled our evolution for millions of years but has also dictated how we live. Different food types or their availability have defined our societies from the Pleistocene to the Holocene period, starting about 12,000 years ago, from hunter-gatherers to the agricultural communities that began just after the same period.
The 19th century saw the dawn of a new food era by the Industrial Revolution. That same revolution changed how food was manufactured, changing a predominantly agricultural and rural population to a new industrialised and urban lifestyle.
However, unlike other industries that developed during the same period, food supply, farming, and the newly created food industry have always been about supplying basic human needs.
Thus began the nascent Food industry's conflict with business management theories rooted in economics, which also evolved during the 20th century. The rise of capitalism and service-linked industries, such as advertising, the big four accountancy firms, asset investment agencies, and management consultancy.
Forces manifested by globalisation, such as market and trade liberalisation, capital flow, and urbanisation, changed the nature of our food systems by increasing the diversity and affordability of food but also by evolving corporate ownership, quality and nutritional value.
By the end of the 20th century, these factors helped create one of the world's largest manufacturing industries, defined by turnover and profit.
The Agri-Food sector is now the world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, responsible for nearly 27 per cent of all human-caused emissions.
A third of all edible food produced goes to waste, even though 10 per cent of the global community goes hungry (FAO, 2020).
The more recent growth of the food industry also coincides with a dramatic shift in consumer eating habits; how the globe now eats and drinks has clashed with our biology to create significant changes in body composition.
Where before drivers for growth were focused solely on taste, price, and convenience, how does a future food industry and its consumers adapt to new emerging drivers, such as health and wellness, social impact and experience, with transparency as an overarching driver on all counts?
Research interests include how our current favourite foods have evolved over the past millennia and how that same evolution now clashes with the more recent growth of the food industry, the product it produces, and the significant mismatch it now creates for humans living in our present world.
Recent Publications