Kraft Foods Senior Director of Research and Nutrition to Present Seminar

Steve Hill, senior director of research and nutrition at Kraft Foods, will present a seminar at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11, in Food Science Room D2 on “Future Opportunities and Challenges for Food Science and Technology.”

Hill is visiting the food science department as part of its Distinguished Seminar Series. During his 20 years at Kraft, he has split his time between being focused on specific businesses and in central research and nutrition. In his current role, Hill is responsible for all internal and external research conducted at Kraft. This includes generating intellectual property to create competitive advantage for Kraft’s businesses and providing the scientific basis for claims used in conjunction with new and current businesses.

Prior to this assignment, Hill was in charge of all product and package development for process, natural and snacking cheese in the cheese and dairy business unit. This included improving current products, developing new products and developing new process technology to make production operations more efficient. In other past assignments, he has provided the leadership for nutritional policy making in Kraft’s global health and wellness initiatives. His areas of focus included developing and implementing policies such as advertising to children, sensible solutions criteria (front of pack labeling), and fruit and vegetable guidelines.

Hill is currently serving on the University of Illinois External Advisory Council for the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department and spent 12 years on the American Oil Chemists’ Society Governing and Foundation Boards. He gives technical lectures and presentations at several universities and industry meetings; recent focus of his talks has been on the role of sodium in cheese and dairy products. He received his undergraduate degree in Food Science from Iowa State University and his doctoral degree from the University of Illinois in Food Science (lipid chemistry).