PASSIONFRUIT was so plentiful around Lismore that Spencer Cottee jnr made a passionfruit cordial drink with pulp scooped from the skins by hand. This was turned into a sparkling beverage by the local cordial factory in 1923. Spencer's son, Harold, later became the driving force behind the growth of the food and beverage group, with the Passiona drink a company spearhead.

When supplies of passionfruit juice could not meet demand for the drink in the 1960s, Max Martin was responsible for setting up processing plants in Fiji, New Guinea and Kenya. Such was the popularity of Passiona that the Cottee's name became a household word and the company moved into jam making, with Martin the technical leader, known as "the Jam Maker". Jellies, peanut butter, puddings and other products bore the company trademark.

Max Martin, who has died at 86, was one of three children born to Cyril Martin, a maintenance engineer at White Bay power station, and his wife, Lily (nee Glover) of Haberfield. Max attended Haberfield Demonstration School, where he decided he would be a chemist. He liked the mystery about chemistry.

Martin went on to Fort Street Boys' High and became a research assistant in 1939 at the fledgling CSIR, later the CSIRO, under Dr Sandy Trout. A number of CSIRO people who undertook the diploma in food technology at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College helped to shape Max Martin's career.

He graduated as an evening student from Sydney Technical College with a diploma in chemistry in 1943, and was awarded the R. K. Murphy research scholarship in 1944, when he had already begun an association with the Cottee family that was to last more than 30 years.

Martin earned his MSc in applied science in 1953 and, in 1955, received a Fulbright scholarship which took him to the University of Massachusetts and to his PhD in food technology, in 1959.

Many towns in Australia had soft drink companies in the 1950s. The Cottee's beverage division set up the first Australia-wide soft drink franchise and every major town had a Cottee's bottler turning out their carbonated flavours, such as Tango, Lime Coola and Big Boy Lemonade, with Passiona the jewel in the range. Martin played a key role in bringing the disciplines of food technology into the development and manufacturing processes.

In 1966 General Foods, based in New York, made a successful takeover bid, couched in merger terms, and the company became Cottee's General Foods. The family culture gave way to a corporate one. Martin, disenchanted, joined those leaving. After General Foods pulled out of Australia, Passiona and other drinks went to Cadbury Schweppes; the jams were sold to Heinz.

In 1970 Martin left the corporate world and joined the Food and Agriculture Organisation, becoming a senior technical adviser in South America and working on developing food industries in Peru, Ecuador and Brazil.

Returning to Australia in 1975, he joined Davis Consolidated Industries, working in senior technical and management roles. He received the Australian Institute Food Science and Technology merit award in 1985. In 2000, he received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the development of food science and technology.

Appropriately enough, he loved food. He could remember most meals, including every course, he had ever eaten while travelling the world on business, going back decades. Yet he could not always remember the people with whom he shared the meals.

Martin's first marriage, to Alma Baker, was dissolved 40 years ago. He is survived by two sons from that marriage, Graeme and Warwick, and three grandchildren; and by his second wife, Marj (nee Allen), a son, David, his daughters, Katinka and Melinda, and five grandchildren.