Emerging technologies
Innovation in the food sector may include, for example, new types for raw material processing technology, packaging of products, and new food additives. Applying new solutions may reduce or prevent adverse changes caused by microorganisms, oxidation of food ingredients, and enzymatic and nonenzymatic reactions. Moreover, healthier and more nutritious food may be delivered as well as the food may taste better due to improvements in food composition, including organoleptic changes, and changes in the perception and pleasures from eating food. [4]
In the 21st century, emerging technologies have included cellular agriculture, particularly cultured meat, 3D food printing, and use of insect protein. [5]
Alternative Protein Sources
With the global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, [6] there is an urgent need for alternative protein sources that are sustainable, nutritious, and environmentally friendly. Plant-based proteins are gaining popularity as they require fewer resources and produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to animal-based proteins. [7] Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have developed plant-based meat alternatives that mimic the taste and texture of traditional meat products. [8] [9]
Food Waste Reduction
Approximately one-third of all food produced globally is wasted. [10] Innovative food tech solutions are being developed to address this issue. For example, Apeel Sciences has developed an edible coating that extends the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, reducing spoilage and waste. [11]
Consumer acceptance
Historically, consumers paid little attention to food technologies. Nowadays, the food production chain is long and complicated and food technologies are diverse. Consequently, consumers are uncertain about the determinants of food quality and find it difficult to understand them. Now, acceptance of food products very often depends on perceived benefits and risks associated with food. Popular views of food processing technologies matter. Especially innovative food processing technologies often are perceived as risky by consumers. [12]
Acceptance of the different food technologies varies. While pasteurization is well recognized and accepted, high pressure treatment and even microwaves often are perceived as risky. Studies by the Hightech Europe project found that traditional technologies were well accepted in contrast to innovative technologies. [13]
Consumers form their attitude towards innovative food technologies through three main mechanisms: First, through knowledge or beliefs about risks and benefits correlated with the technology; second, through attitudes based on their own experience; and third, through application of higher order values and beliefs. [14] A number of scholars consider the risk-benefit trade-off as one of the main determinants of consumer acceptance, [15] although some researchers place more emphasis on the role of benefit perception (rather than risk) in consumer acceptance. [16]
Rogers (2010) defines five major criteria that explain differences in the acceptance of new technology by consumers: complexity, compatibility, relative advantage, trialability and observability. [17]
Acceptance of innovative technologies can be improved by providing non-emotional and concise information about these new technological processes methods. The HighTech project also suggests that written information has a higher impact on consumers than audio-visual information. [18]
Food preservation includes processes that make food more resistant to microorganism growth and slow the oxidation of fats. This slows down the decomposition and rancidification process. Food preservation may also include processes that inhibit visual deterioration, such as the enzymatic browning reaction in apples after they are cut during food preparation. By preserving food, food waste can be reduced, which is an important way to decrease production costs and increase the efficiency of food systems, improve food security and nutrition and contribute towards environmental sustainability. For instance, it can reduce the environmental impact of food production.
Food irradiation is the process of exposing food and food packaging to ionizing radiation, such as from gamma rays, x-rays, or electron beams. Food irradiation improves food safety and extends product shelf life (preservation) by effectively destroying organisms responsible for spoilage and foodborne illness, inhibits sprouting or ripening, and is a means of controlling insects and invasive pests.
In the field of food processing, pasteurization is a process of food preservation in which packaged and unpacked foods are treated with mild heat, usually to less than 100 °C (212 °F), to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life. Pasteurization either destroys or deactivates microorganisms and enzymes that contribute to food spoilage or the risk of disease, including vegetative bacteria, but most bacterial spores survive the process.
Ultra-high temperature processing (UHT), ultra-heat treatment, and ultra-pasteurization is a food processing technology that sterilizes a liquid food by heating the food for two to five seconds to a temperature greater than 140 °C (284 °F) to kill bacterial endospores. In the production of food products, UHT processing is applied to milk and milk products, and to the production of fruit juices, soy milk, wine, savoury canned foods, and honey. UHT milk was first developed in the 1960s and became generally available for consumption in the 1970s. The heat used during the UHT process can cause Maillard browning and change the taste and smell of dairy products. An alternative process is flash pasteurization, in which the milk is heated to 72 °C (162 °F) for at least fifteen seconds.
Food science is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the development of food technology.
Food storage is a way of decreasing the variability of the food supply in the face of natural, inevitable variability. It allows food to be eaten for some time after harvest rather than solely immediately. It is both a traditional domestic skill and, in the form of food logistics, an important industrial and commercial activity. Food preservation, storage, and transport, including timely delivery to consumers, are important to food security, especially for the majority of people throughout the world who rely on others to produce their food.
Cultured meat, also known as cultivated meat among other names, is a form of cellular agriculture where meat is produced by culturing animal cells in vitro. Cultured meat is produced using tissue engineering techniques pioneered in regenerative medicine. Jason Matheny popularized the concept in the early 2000s after he co-authored a paper on cultured meat production and created New Harvest, the world's first non-profit organization dedicated to in-vitro meat research. Cultured meat has the potential to address the environmental impact of meat production, animal welfare, food security and human health, in addition to its potential mitigation of climate change.
Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing takes many forms, from grinding grain into raw flour, home cooking, and complex industrial methods used in the making of convenience foods. Some food processing methods play important roles in reducing food waste and improving food preservation, thus reducing the total environmental impact of agriculture and improving food security.
Food engineering is a scientific, academic, and professional field that interprets and applies principles of engineering, science, and mathematics to food manufacturing and operations, including the processing, production, handling, storage, conservation, control, packaging and distribution of food products. Given its reliance on food science and broader engineering disciplines such as electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical, industrial and agricultural engineering, food engineering is considered a multidisciplinary and narrow field.
Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) is the practice of modifying the composition of the internal atmosphere of a package in order to improve the shelf life. The need for this technology for food arises from the short shelf life of food products such as meat, fish, poultry, and dairy in the presence of oxygen. In food, oxygen is readily available for lipid oxidation reactions. Oxygen also helps maintain high respiration rates of fresh produce, which contribute to shortened shelf life. From a microbiological aspect, oxygen encourages the growth of aerobic spoilage microorganisms. Therefore, the reduction of oxygen and its replacement with other gases can reduce or delay oxidation reactions and microbiological spoilage. Oxygen scavengers may also be used to reduce browning due to lipid oxidation by halting the auto-oxidative chemical process. Besides, MAP changes the gaseous atmosphere by incorporating different compositions of gases.
The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, family-run activities that are highly labour-intensive, to large, capital-intensive and highly mechanized industrial processes. Many food industries depend almost entirely on local agriculture, animal farms, produce, and/or fishing.
An inducement prize contest (IPC) is a competition that awards a cash prize for the accomplishment of a feat, usually of engineering. IPCs are typically designed to extend the limits of human ability. Some of the most famous IPCs include the Longitude prize (1714–1765), the Orteig Prize (1919–1927) and prizes from enterprises such as Challenge Works and the X Prize Foundation.
Oat milk is a plant milk derived from whole oat grains by extracting the plant material with water. Oat milk has a creamy texture and mild oatmeal-like flavor, and is manufactured in various flavors, such as sweetened, unsweetened, vanilla, and chocolate.
Food chemistry is the study of chemical processes and interactions of all biological and non-biological components of foods. The biological substances include such items as meat, poultry, lettuce, beer, milk as examples. It is similar to biochemistry in its main components such as carbohydrates, lipids, and protein, but it also includes areas such as water, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, food additives, flavors, and colors. This discipline also encompasses how products change under certain food processing techniques and ways either to enhance or to prevent them from happening. An example of enhancing a process would be to encourage fermentation of dairy products with microorganisms that convert lactose to lactic acid; an example of preventing a process would be stopping the browning on the surface of freshly cut apples using lemon juice or other acidulated water.
Food packaging is a packaging system specifically designed for food and represents one of the most important aspects among the processes involved in the food industry, as it provides protection from chemical, biological and physical alterations. The main goal of food packaging is to provide a practical means of protecting and delivering food goods at a reasonable cost while meeting the needs and expectations of both consumers and industries. Additionally, current trends like sustainability, environmental impact reduction, and shelf-life extension have gradually become among the most important aspects in designing a packaging system.
Instant soup is a type of soup designed for fast and simple preparation. Some are homemade, and some are mass-produced on an industrial scale and treated in various ways to preserve them. A wide variety of types, styles and flavors of instant soups exist. Commercial instant soups are usually dried or dehydrated, canned, or treated by freezing.
Aseptic processing is a processing technique wherein commercially thermally sterilized liquid products are packaged into previously sterilized containers under sterile conditions to produce shelf-stable products that do not need refrigeration. Aseptic processing has almost completely replaced in-container sterilization of liquid foods, including milk, fruit juices and concentrates, cream, yogurt, salad dressing, liquid egg, and ice cream mix. There has been an increasing popularity for foods that contain small discrete particles, such as cottage cheese, baby foods, tomato products, fruit and vegetables, soups, and rice desserts.
Pascalization, bridgmanization, high pressure processing (HPP) or high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) processing is a method of preserving and sterilizing food, in which a product is processed under very high pressure, leading to the inactivation of certain microorganisms and enzymes in the food. HPP has a limited effect on covalent bonds within the food product, thus maintaining both the sensory and nutritional aspects of the product. The technique was named after Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French scientist whose work included detailing the effects of pressure on fluids. During pascalization, more than 50,000 pounds per square inch may be applied for approximately fifteen minutes, leading to the inactivation of yeast, mold, vegetative bacteria, and some viruses and parasites. Pascalization is also known as bridgmanization, named for physicist Percy Williams Bridgman.
Biopreservation is the use of natural or controlled microbiota or antimicrobials as a way of preserving food and extending its shelf life. The biopreservation of food, especially utilizing lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that are inhibitory to food spoilage microbes, has been practiced since early ages, at first unconsciously but eventually with an increasingly robust scientific foundation. Beneficial bacteria or the fermentation products produced by these bacteria are used in biopreservation to control spoilage and render pathogens inactive in food. There are a various modes of action through which microorganisms can interfere with the growth of others such as organic acid production, resulting in a reduction of pH and the antimicrobial activity of the un-dissociated acid molecules, a wide variety of small inhibitory molecules including hydrogen peroxide, etc. It is a benign ecological approach which is gaining increasing attention.
Cellular agriculture focuses on the production of agricultural products from cell cultures using a combination of biotechnology, tissue engineering, molecular biology, and synthetic biology to create and design new methods of producing proteins, fats, and tissues that would otherwise come from traditional agriculture. Most of the industry is focused on animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs, produced in cell culture rather than raising and slaughtering farmed livestock which is associated with substantial global problems of detrimental environmental impacts, animal welfare, food security and human health. Cellular agriculture is a field of the biobased economy. The most well known cellular agriculture concept is cultured meat.
