Student showcase

Tina Alderton

Tina Alderton has been involved in Royal Society of New Zealand programmes since 1999.  She was a participant and award winner at the National Science & Technology Fair in 1999 and also attended the APEC Youth Science Festival in Singapore.  She graduated from Massey University in May 2006 (finished her degree at the end of 05).  She studies Food Science and Agribusiness which included part Food Technology, part Finance/Marketing and International Agribusiness.

She started work with McCain Foods NZ in April 06 as a graduate Management trainee and she worked with the Quality Manager in Feilding before getting transferred to McCain Foods Australia (Ballarat, VIC) after only a month. She remained as a trainee in the Quality Department for 4 months before getting a permanent role as Quality Control Technical Officer in their Potato Products plant. 

In 2007 her Quality Manager for Australia decided to have a baby and so she is currently partially fulfilling her position while she is away. It has been a very challenging role as she is now in charge of several staff and co-ordinates activities such as sensory testing, complaints investigation, new product specifications and pest control (not her favourite thing!). She also visited Hong Kong for sensory training with McDonalds as we make their fries and hashbrowns.

She says “ I owe a lot of where I am today through the learning and experiences of the science and technology fair programmes in school and continuation of this through university”.