Laura joined our team as an intern in February 2019. We are delighted to present Laura to you in her own words:

'Even as a young girl I was intrigued by the world of food. It was therefore no surprise that I decided to study for a Bachelor in Food Technology at Wageningen University. The more I learned, the more I became interested in the field of sustainability as well, and in combining this with food technology. So I decided to do a combined Master’s degree: Sustainable Development (Utrecht University) and Sustainable Food Process Engineering (Wageningen University). I am delighted to have the opportunity to write my thesis at Blonk Consultants, the ultimate combination of my two main interests. I got to know Blonk Consultants from their interesting reports on meat substitutes which I read for my Bachelor’s thesis and so I am very happy to be part of the team now!

Over the next few months I will be working with Optimeal to come up with a future-proof healthy and sustainable diet for the EU. The main focus of my research will be on the influence of the coupled system of beef and dairy production: what happens to dairy production when consumption of beef decreases? Should we still consume milk and cheese? By coupling the products the optimised diet will show a more realistic result.

Fun fact: working at Blonk means back to the roots for me, since I was born and raised in Gouda!’