Specialized in gas kinetics at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK before defending his Ph.D. thesis in Leyden, the Netherlands in 1965. He then worked for ICI, first in a central research laboratory in the UK, then at the ICI Holland Rozenburg Works and finally at the ICI Europa headquarters in Everberg, Belgium.
In 1978, he became involved in edible oils and fats when he joined the Vandemoortele Group in Izegem, Belgium as R & D Director. He is the inventor in a dozen patents and has published numerous articles and book chapters on edible oil processing; he has also acted as co-editor.
He was the first non-American to receive the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS) Chang Award (1997) and also the first to receive the European Lipid Technology Award (2002). In 2009, he was selected for the Alton E. Bailey medal of the AOCS and the Chevreul medal of the Association française de l’étude des corps gras (AFECG). In 2010, he received the Timothy L. Mounts Award of the AOCS and was also elected as a Fellow of the AOCS. Although officially retired, he continues to be active in the field of edible oils and fats as an author, editor, inventor and scientific consultant.