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Professor

PhD (Otago), MSc (Otago), BSc (Otago)
Phil Bremer 2020 image

Contact

Tel +64 3 479 5469
Email phil.bremer@otago.ac.nz
Location Archway West 1.07

About

Phil is Chief Scientist for the New Zealand Food Safety Science Research Centre. He leads the Technical Innovation sub-theme of the University of Otago's Food Waste Innovation theme. The Theme measures food waste, develops reduction strategies, applies innovative technology, and works to modify producer and consumer behaviour.

He is a technical advisor to the Fresh Produce Safety Centre, Horticulture Food Safety Initiative and Network Lead (University of Otago) for the New Zealand Product Accelerator.

Phil's research interests include product development, the tracking and controlling of foodborne pathogens, investigating the role of micro-organisms in flavour development, developing technologies and approaches to reduce food waste, and exploring consumer's knowledge and perceptions on a range of food related topics.

Phil has worked with a wide range of companies on projects in the dairy, vegetable, seafood, meat, brewing and wine industries.

Prior to becoming a Professor in Food Science, Phil was the Microbiology Programme Manager at the New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food Research, Nelson from 1992 to 2002.

He is a Fellow of The New Zealand Institute of Food Science & Technology (President 2021-2023) and The International Academy of Food Science and Technology, and a member of The New Zealand Association of Food Protection (President 2017–18), The New Zealand Microbiological Society (President 2001–03), and the Ministry of Health's Infectious Disease Academy.

Phil is available for consultation on a number of areas including:

  • The development of new food products
  • Ways to enhance the safety, quality or shelf-life of existing products
  • Microbiological issues in seafood, dairy and vegetable processing industries
  • Cleaning and sanitising regimes
  • Strategies to reduce or recover value from outputs which would otherwise be wasted

Teaching

Course Co-ordinator

Contributor to

Research

Research interests

  • Enhancing the quality, flavour attributes and shelf-life of foods
  • Understanding and optimising flavour development (beer, wine, blue cheese, processed meats)
  • The application of volatile analysis to study of food quality and/or microbial growth
  • Development and validation of cleaning and sanitising regimes
  • Consumer behaviour and food choice
  • Food safety and consumers' perceptions of risk
  • Development of strategies to reduce or recover value from outputs which would otherwise be wasted

Research Funding/Projects

  • 2024 – 2027. Pletzer, D., Bremer, P., Wardell, S., Croft, B., MacLennan, G., Graham, J. and Saseendran, S. and Nair, A Host Defense Peptide-based antibiofilm spray to control food spoilage, MBIE Endeavour 2024 – Smart Idea
  • 2023 – 2026. Brightwell, G., dos Rei, M., Soni, A., Fletcher, G., Gupta, S., Choi, J. and Bremer, P.  Application of cold-plasma, hyperspectral-imaging, and machine-learning to advance NZ’s cell-based protein industries MBIE Endeavour 2023 – Smart Idea
  • 2023- 2026. Delbet, M., Syed, F., Walters, E., Klieber, A., McConchie, R., Deaker, R., and Bremer, P. HN21000 Horticulture food safety initiative, Hort Innovation
  • 2023. Skeaff, S., Dawson, K., Bremer. P. and Mirosa, A baseline estimate of food loss and waste in Aotearoa Ministry for the Environment
  • 2022 – 2025. Eyres, G., Silcock, P., Bremer, P., University of Otago; Chris Bloore, Dairy Industry Systems Consultant; Paul Marra, Flavorjen Limited; Brendan Haigh, Miraka; Recovery of high-value, natural flavour compounds from untapped food processing sources. MBIE Endeavour 2022 - Smart Idea

Postgraduate Supervision

Supervision topics

My industry connections are as follows:

  • Seafood, vegetable, dairy, brewing, meat, poultry, canning

Please email me for a list of projects.

Current Students

  • Max Nally, 2025. High throughput monitoring of volatile compounds generated during fermentation of plant-based media
  • Ke Wang, 2024. Using AI to improve food safety culture
  • Safira Andayani, 2024. Effect of novel processing and fermentation on legumes
  • Kawindhya Thathsarani Abewarna Patabendige, 2024. The Effect of Pulsed Electric Field on the Tenderization of Meat
  • Steffi Thomas, 2023. The use of Cold-Plasma activated media to reduce bacterial contamination in culture media
  • Sakuni de Silva, 2023. Recovery of high-value, natural flavour compounds

Recent Students

  • Jessica O’Connor, 2021 – 2025. Food waste in the beef and dairy industry
  • Stella Zhou, 2021 – 2024. Investigation of the barriers and enablers for reducing meat consumption in China
  • Grace Clare, 2021 – 2024. Determining the return on social investment for food banks
  • Sarathadevi Rajendran, 2020 – 2023. The development of meat and dairy flavours by the fermentation of plant based substrates
  • Rebecca Roberts, 2021 – 2023. Understanding hop flavour in beer using high throughput volatile compound analysis
  • Charlene Li, 2019 - 2022. Quantification and management of food waste in online food delivery platform in China
  • Roman Kari, 2019 - 2022. Impact of pulse electric field processing and sous vide technology on the tenderness of beef short-ribs
  • Soundarya Karamcheti, 2018- 2022. Using Bayesian inference to model microbial growth or death in food
  • Parise Adadi, 2019 – 2022. The effect of sound on yeast during fermentation and the impact on beer flavour
  • Erin Young, 2018 – 2022. Chinese consumer perceptions of smart packaging technologies

Publications

Thorsen, M., Hill, J., Farber, J., Yiannas, F., Rietjens, I. M. C. M., Venter, P., … Bremer, P. (2025). Megatrends and emerging issues: Impacts on food safety. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science & Food Safety, 24, e70170. doi: 10.1111/1541-4337.70170 Journal - Research Article

Rajendran, S., Khomenko, I., Silcock, P., Betta, E., Biasioli, F., & Bremer, P. (2025). The use of proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS) to determine the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by different lactic acid bacterial strains growing in defined media. Applied Microbiology, 5, 33. doi: 10.3390/applmicrobiol5010033 Journal - Research Article

Thorsen, M., Mirosa, M., Skeaff, S., Goodman-Smith, F., & Bremer, P. (2025). Not all upcycled food is created equal: What is sustainable? The Briefing, (9 January). Retrieved from https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/not-all-upcycled-food-created-equal-what-sustainable Journal - Research Other

Zheng, L., Di, Q., Xu, X., Liu, L., Qu, C., Bremer, P., & Zhou, X. (2025). Phenotypic and WGS-derived antibiotic resistance patterns of Salmonella Enteritidis isolates from retail meat and environment during 2014 to 2019 in China. Frontiers in Microbiology, 16. Advance online publication. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1502138 Journal - Research Article

Karamcheti, S. T., Brightwell, G., Bremer, P., & Schofield, M. R. (2025). Hierarchical Bayesian linear mixed model to estimate variability in the thermal inactivation parameters for Listeria species. Food Microbiology, 128, 104731. doi: 10.1016/j.fm.2025.104731 Journal - Research Article

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