About The Staff Member

Dr. Sarpong is Food scientist with specialty in food processing and engineering in modern processing technologies. Besides, Dr. Sarpong come on board with rich research in areas such as unit processing, heat and mass transfer, food analysis and sensory analysis. Dr. Sarpong holds a PhD in Food Science and Engineering from Jiangsu University, China where his research was conducted in industrial modeling, drying kinetics and evaluating the ameliorative effects of controlled relative humidity (RH) against browning pigmentation and phytochemicals degradation of selected crops. Also, Dr. Sarpong obtained his MSc in Food Science and Technology and BSc in Biological Sciences from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.

After national service, Dr. Sarpong was recruited by Ghana education Service in the teaching of Biology at SDASS, Bekwai-Ash. Whiles teaching, Dr. Sarpong was also schooling at KNUST where he obtained his MSc in Food Science and Technology (2015). In 2016, he left the shores of Ghana to pursue his PhD study at Jiangsu University, China and after completion, returned home in June, 2019. Dr. Sarpong joined the CSIR-Oil Palm Research Institute in 2019 and began the operation of new division (Value Addition) of the institute. He was tasked to spearhead the development of the division from a rudimentary stage to a state-of-the-art with adequate building infrastructure, personnel and laboratory equipment/ machinery. Also, his assignment in the Division is to convert raw oil palm and coconut to final consumable products with high market value with the purpose of enhancing its quality, taste, and nutritional value, as well as its shelf-life.

In terms of research, Dr. Sarpong is the principal investigator in convectional drying on five CSIR-OPRI varieties of coconut-copra and quality profiling of desiccated powder project where the aims is to evaluate the drying kinetics of the varieties of coconut through modelling; evaluate quality (proximate, sensory, color, rehydration ratio, TPC, TFC, vitamin C, Sugar, Fiber, antioxidants and minerals) and study the quality degradation of selected nutrients during storage. Also, another project titled Digitizing the spectrophotometric determination of Free Fatty Acids in oils is bing undertaken by Dr. Sarpong who is acting as principal investigator in the project.

Dr. Sarpong has authored twenty-eight (28) refereed journal papers, two (2) books and two (2) conference papers which have been published in high impact factors and Science Citation Indexed (SCI) journals in Food science and Biochemistry category. Again, Dr. Sarpong has trained several technicians in food analysis, sensory analysis, food processing and has been consulted in feasibility study in the establishment of food processing industry.

Dr. Sarpong is currently the associate editor of African Journal of Food and Integrated Agriculture and International Journal of Innovative Food Science and Technology, Scopus indexed journals with high reputations. Also, he is astute Organizing officer of Africa Society of Food and Technology, reviewer of SCI journals including Food measurement and characterization, Food Nutrition and Science, Food biotechnology and production just to name a few. Dr. Sarpong is also award-winning scientist by winning best post-graduate research personnel of the year (2018), Jiangsu University, China and best paper presentation in the 2nd International symposium on low-temperature processing of foods, Suzhou-China. He has also won the best paper presentation in 5th food drying workshop and 10th LF-NMR National conference, Wuxi-China. At the post-graduate level, Dr. Sarpong was involved in the teaching of Food Science, Food Chemistry, sensory Analysis, Instrumentation Analysis and Food analysis and also co-supervised undergraduate project works.

Dr. Sarpong is a Research Scientist and heads the Value Addition Division of CSIR-Oil Palm Research Institute. He is married with children.