The Federal Minister of Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity, Alois Rainer, has appointed Dr. Betrand Matthäus Vice-President of the Max Rubner-Institut (MRI). “In the person of Bertrand Matthäus, we have succeeded in gaining an excellent scientist for this role. He has been closely associated with the Max Rubner-Institut and departmental research for a long time,” emphasises Prof. Tanja Schwerdtle, President of MRI. The Vice-President’s remit is to represent the President in all scientific matters. In the context of MRI’s re-structuring, in May 2026, Matthäus assumed leadership of the Institute for Foods of Plant Origin, an amalgamation of two precursor institutes.
Matthäus studied chemistry at Ruhr University Bochum and food chemistry at the University of Münster where he completed a doctorate in food chemistry in 1992. Since 1993, he has worked at the Max Rubner-Institut and its precursor institutions, assuming the leadership of the Detmold-based Institute for the Safety and Quality of Cereals in September 2021. Specialising in lipid research, the food chemist has succeeded in establishing new areas of investigation at MRI, such as research into organic production and the climate resilience of plant-based foods, gaining international visibility for research on the safety and quality of plant proteins and vegetable oils.
Matthäus’s own scientific work focuses on the development of quality criteria for vegetable oils as well as the investigation and minimisation of harmful substances potentially released during heating. He has cooperated with national and international research partners to evaluate and improve the quality of frying oils, cold-pressed rapeseed oil and argan oil, and to reduce harmful substances in edible oils. The key results of this work include the development of criteria for evaluating native rapeseed oils, as well as various methods for minimising 3-MCPD and glycidyl fatty acid esters in edible oils and foods. Under his leadership, research activities into new lipid phases for use in foodstuffs, known as oleogels, are both innovative and nutritionally significant.
Matthäus’s national and international reputation is evidenced by his board membership of the German Society for Fat Science; joining in 2015, he was made Vice-President in 2025. Moreover, since 2022, he has been active in various positions for the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology, including President and Past-President. Matthäus holds an honorary professorship at the Oil Crops Research Institute in the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Wuhan, China. He has been awarded the Normann Medal by the German Society for Fat Science.
Before Dr. Matthäus assumed his office as Vice-President, Dr Ralf Greiner, current head of the Innovation Centre for Food and Process Technologies, held the position from February 2016. “I would like to express my sincere gratitude for his long-term, outstanding commitment to the Max Rubner-Institut,” says Prof. Schwerdtle.
