Max Rubner Institute Gets a New Vice President
Food chemist Dr. Bertrand Matthäus is taking over the position and will also head the new Institute for Plant-Based Foods
Alois Rainer, Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Home Affairs, has appointed Dr. Bertrand Matthäus as vice president of the Max Rubner Institute. “With Bertrand Matthäus, we have been able to recruit an excellent scientist for this role, someone who has had a deep and long-standing familiarity with the Max Rubner Institute and the ministry’s research programs,” emphasizes Prof. Tanja Schwerdtle, MRI President. The Vice President’s role is to represent the President in all scientific matters. As part of the restructuring of the Max Rubner Institute (MRI), Matthäus assumed leadership of the Institute for Plant-Based Foods—formed by the merger of two predecessor institutes—in May 2026.
Matthäus studied chemistry at Ruhr University in Bochum and food chemistry at the University of Münster. There, he earned his Ph.D. in food chemistry in 1992. Matthäus has been working at the Max Rubner Institute and its predecessor institutions since 1993. In September 2021, he took over as director of the Institute for Cereal Safety and Quality in Detmold. As a food chemist specializing in lipid research, he has succeeded in establishing new research areas at the MRI—such as research on organic production and climate resilience of plant-based foods—and in gaining international recognition in the field of research on the safety and quality of plant proteins and vegetable oils.
His own scientific work focuses on developing quality criteria for vegetable oils, as well as investigating and minimizing harmful substances that may be produced when these oils are heated. He has collaborated with national and international research partners to evaluate and improve the quality of frying oils, cold-pressed canola oil, and argan oil, as well as to reduce contaminants in edible oils. Key results of this work include the development of criteria for evaluating virgin rapeseed oils, as well as various methods for minimizing 3-MCPD and glycidyl fatty acid esters in edible oils and foods. His leadership of research activities on new fat phases for use in foods—known as oleogels—is both innovative and nutritionally significant.
Matthäus’s national and international reputation is also reflected in his service on the board of the German Society for Fat Science since 2015; he has served as its vice president since 2025. Since 2022, he has also held various positions, including President and Past President, at the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology. Matthäus holds an honorary professorship at the Oil Crops Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Wuhan, China. He was awarded the Normann Medal by the German Society for Fat Science.
Before Dr. Matthäus assumed his role as Vice President, Dr. Ralf Greiner, currently Director of the Innovation Center for Food and Process Technologies, had served as Acting President since February 2016. “I would like to express my sincere gratitude for his many years of outstanding dedication to the Max Rubner Institute,” said Prof. Schwerdtle.
Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.
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Topic world Food safety
Food safety is at the heart of the food and beverage industry. It ensures that the food we eat every day is not only nutritious, but also free of harmful contaminants. From field to plate, the industry monitors and regulates every step of the process with strict quality controls, advanced testing methods and continuous research.
Topic world Food safety
Food safety is at the heart of the food and beverage industry. It ensures that the food we eat every day is not only nutritious, but also free of harmful contaminants. From field to plate, the industry monitors and regulates every step of the process with strict quality controls, advanced testing methods and continuous research.