Photo by Tom Campbell

Since stepping down as food science department head in 2003, it has been smooth sailing for Nelson, who lives in a lakefront home in northern Michigan

Here’s what Phil Nelson has to say on nine topics.

On the World Food Prize: “Mike Reckowsky (administrative director in the Department of Food Science) and Suzanne Nielsen (food science department head) and the Institute of Food Technologists nominated me a few years ago, but I said: ‘You’re crazy, there’s no chance. There has never been a food scientist win the prize; it’ll never happen.’”

His fondest memories: “The success of my life has been working with entrepreneurs who think outside the box and take some gambles. They win some and they lose some, but fortunately they win more than they lose.”

On starting the food science department: “It was touch and go for a while. We had nine faculty and 30 students in 1983. But Dr. Beering (Purdue president Steven C. Beering), Dean Liska (ag dean Bernard J. Liska) and the trustees said there would be a department. The good news was that we had a department. The bad news was that there was no money to support our programs.”

On his vision for the department: “The most important thing is to have a vision and be able to sell it. Our vision was to be THE leading food science department in the world. Now we have 135 undergrads, 64 graduate students and 23 faculty. So in a short period of time, I’d say we’re well on the way to becoming THE top food science program.”

On his plans after high school: “I was going to take general ag courses at Purdue, then go back to the family cannery in Morristown. There were over 200 canneries in Indiana at that time. It seemed like there was one at every crossroad.”

On returning to Purdue in 1960: “We called it the great escape, but it was really difficult to leave. I was the youngest child and nobody else had stayed, so I felt that it was up to me to stay and work the farm.”

On his close ties with industry: “I had been advised not to take any money from industry. As a researcher, you had to be pure. But I took it. Now they use that as an example of industry and a university working together to solve problems.”

On bag-in-a-box technology: “William Scholle, an entrepreneur, had been packing battery acid in plastic bags. He wanted to know if we could do the same with food. They made a 300-gallon bag that took over the tomato industry. The bag was cheaper and easier to move around than metal drums. Now the 300-gallon bag-in-a-box has taken over the world. It’s incredible.”

On the ripple effect in industry: “I didn’t invent the Scholle bag. I didn’t invent aseptic processing. But it was putting it all together and making it commercially viable that made the whole process work. I was like a little pebble that started a ripple. But there were a lot of other people that made those ripples turn into waves.”