Internship R&D Biotechnology Meewerkstage

Are you a student and interested in working in a professional research environment? Are you passionate about sustainable innovation, and do you want to have an impact on the protein transition in the agricultural sector? Apply now and join us at our laboratory and pilot research facility within the Agrifirm R&D center!

👨‍🌾 Royal Agrifirm Group

Agrifirm’s vision is to work daily on a responsible food chain for future generations. We want to ensure that we can continue to offer affordable, healthy, and sustainable food to everyone. Agrifirm, therefore, supplies high-quality products such as animal feed, products for the cultivation of crops, and professional advice.

Agrifirm was founded approximately 120 years ago in the Netherlands and is now a leading agricultural cooperative with an international network of subsidiaries located in 16 countries in Europe, South America, and Asia and a worldwide distribution network. The head office is located in Apeldoorn, and with more than 3,000 committed employees, Agrifirm works daily on a healthy future for farmers and society.

💪 The challenge

Our R&D team, Biobased Technology, is developing a new fermentation process to create a single-cell protein (SCP) product. In the future, this ingredient could be used as a more sustainable alternative to soy-based proteins, which are today frequently used in the animal feed industry. Within this project, we are looking for a student intern to support the development of the SCP production process.

We have several projects available relating to the pre-treatment of co-products, fermentation optimization, and biorefining. You will perform lab and/or pilot-based experiments, analyze data and support your findings with literature. Together with the team, you will translate your findings into an optimized production process for the novel feed ingredient.

Your responsibilities:

• Design and perform your own lab-based fermentation experiments;
• Operate our lab and/or pilot scale bioreactors;
• Translate experimental results into optimization strategies for large-scale production;
• Analyze currently available literature and data;

✅ What’s on your CV?

• You follow a relevant study for example, in the field of biotechnology, food or biochemistry, or microbiology;
• During your studies, you gained knowledge on (one of) the following items: Chemical and nutritional composition of feed and food ingredients
• Fermentation
• Bioreactor/bioprocess design
• You have established lab experience in chemical and microbial experiments;
• You are fluent in English, and understanding Dutch is beneficial;

👉This is who you are!

• You have a passion for biotechnology, preferably enzymatic or microbial processes;
• You are a strong analytical thinker with an assertive mindset;
• You are proactive and effectively organize your own work;

🗒️Our offer

By doing an internship with us, you will experience what it is like to work in a young and motivated R&D team within a leading organization. As an intern, you will become acquainted with the working method of Royal Agrifirm Group, you will be intensively supervised, and you will have the opportunity to gain broad experience. In addition to pre-set guidelines and project tasks, you will be free to develop your own hypothesis and experiments to further develop your research capacities.

We offer an internship allowance of € 400.00 gross per month based on 40 hours per week. You will join an enthusiastic, committed team where cooperation and results are central. The location is ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Interested? We’d love to get in touch! Apply directly through Fiks.