Processing - Articles and news items
Issue 3 2010, Past issues / 30 June 2010 / Huug de Vries, Project Coordinator, NovelQ
New Food editor Helen Difford spoke with NovelQ Project Coordinator Huug de Vries about the EU-funded integrated project. After five years, the project is drawing to a close and our October issue of New Food will incorporate the NovelQ project findings and what it means for the industry.
Huug, can you give some examples of applications of novel processing technologies?
“High pressure for pasteurisation applications has now being widely implemented for fruit juices, ham, seafood, tapas, etc. Also, the first pulsed electrical field equipment is available for pasteurisation of liquids and for extraction purposes. A first demonstrator for cold plasma disinfection is on the market. (more…)
Issue 2 2009 / 1 June 2010 / Christian James, Research Fellow, Food Refrigeration and Process Engineering Research Centre (FRPERC) and Stephen J. James, Director, Food Refrigeration and Process Engineering Research Centre (FRPERC)
The drive to maximise the storage and display lives of perishable foods has led to increasing interest in holding foods in the region between their freezing point and -12°C. This is a grey area in terms of much international legislation, since food is not usually considered fully ‘frozen’ until it is below -12°C and only considered ‘chilled’ above its freezing point. There is also a confusion of terms used to describe the states of foods and processes in this temperature region. The terms ‘super-chilled’, ‘deep-chilled’, ‘ultra-chilled’ or ‘partially-frozen’ are often used for foods held in this temperature region; the Japanese also use the term ‘Hyo-on’.
Confusingly, some in the food industry also use similar terms for chilled foods that are simply held below 0°C, or use the terms ‘super-chilling’, ‘deep-chilling’ or ‘hard-chilling’ for the process of using refrigerating temperatures below 0°C (also commonly referred to as ‘rapid’ or ‘ultra-rapid’ chilling). Where freezing occurs during the process before equalising at the required storage temperature, terms such as ‘crust-freezing’ and ‘partial-freezing’ may also be used. Crust-freezing is often used to aid the cutting of foods by making the outside of the product rigid and thus easier to cut. A more controlled process, whereby the whole of the product is at a uniform temperature where it has a substantial ice content for slicing or other forms of processing, is called ‘tempering’. To yet further confuse matters, some foods can be held significantly below their freezing point without freezing occurring (i.e. nucleation of ice crystals); this is usually referred to as ‘super-cooled’, ‘sub-cooled’, or ‘under-cooled’. (more…)
Issue 2 2010 / 12 May 2010 / Dr. Ian Roberts, Director of the Chocolate Centre of Excellence, Nestlé
Cocoa has always held a special status in society. It has evolved from being used to make a beverage featuring at sacrificial ceremonies, travelled via the conquest of the indigenous cultures of Meso-America to the Spanish Royal Court and through high society in France and Italy to find a more peaceful home in the Swiss Alps. It now provides pleasure to millions of consumers across the world on a daily basis.
The secret of the cacao (pronounced kah-KOW) tree was discovered 2,000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. The discovery of consuming cocoa is attributed to the Classic Period Maya (250-900 AD). Cocoa was a central component of the culture of Meso-America featuring in Aztec and Mayan ceremonies and royal gatherings. Priests presented cacao seeds as offerings to the gods and served chocolate drinks during sacred ceremonies.
The cocoa was harvested from the trees in the depths of the rainforests (a far cry from the more organised cocoa farms of today), fermented, ground into paste, mixed with chillies and cornmeal and consumed as a bitter, highly spiced, frothy beverage. Today, in Mexico, this chocolate beverage culture continues to thrive, with less use of chillies, but a wide use of cinnamon and some sugar to mask the bitterness in products such as ‘ABUELITA’. The ceremony remains central to the preparation of the product and creates a focal point for the family, with the mother using a specially made wooden ‘molinillo’ (a type of whisk) to make the foam before serving her family. (more…)
Issue 1 2010, Past issues / 22 February 2010 / Sarah Krol, General Manager, Nonfood Compounds Registration Program, NSF International
The use of food-grade lubricants has revolutionised the food manufacturing process, making it possible to increase productivity, improve food safety and protect metal surfaces from corrosion and wear. They withstand extreme temperatures and can be designed for specialised applications. So what does the future hold for these Titans of the food production process?
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Issue 1 2010, Past issues / 22 February 2010 / Peter Bird, Marketing Advisor, Food Industry Machinery Lubricants, ExxonMobil Lubricants & Specialties
Recalls of food and beverage products due to contamination concerns have risen significantly over the last decade. Considering that recalled products can be devastating to a brand and potentially harmful to consumers, it is not surprising that the U.S. Food Processing 2008 Annual Manufacturing Trends Survey indicated that food and beverage processors’ number one concern is food safety, more so than energy, labour issues or environmental concerns.
This trend extends far beyond the United States, impacting regions all around the world. In today’s current global economic climate, food and beverage processors are under more pressure than ever to ensure the safety of their products, protect their brand reputation, enhance their company’s productivity and expand profit margins in the face of tightening economic times.
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Issue 1 2010, Past issues / 22 February 2010 / Holly Hughes, Charles Speirs & Sarah Chapman, Campden BRI
With consumers becoming more aware of what is in their diet, there is a growing interest in more ‘natural’ and healthy foods free from additives. The UK food industry is under increased pressure to simplify ingredient lists and remove ‘artificial’ additives from foods. The increasing popularity of the clean label movement within the EU is shown through data obtained by Mintel’s Global New Products Database (GNPD). Between January 2008 and June 2009, the most popular claim made when launching new food and beverages was ‘no additives’ or ‘no preservatives’. This was found on 13,441 products1. In addition, 23 per cent of global food and drinks launches in 2008 featured ‘natural’ or ‘no artificial….’ claims2.
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Issue 1 2010, Past issues / 22 February 2010 / Chris Cattini, Senior Scientific Officer, IFIS Publishing
The International Food Information Service (IFIS) produces the FSTA – Food Science and Technology Abstracts® database, a resource specifically developed for the food industry. The database offers unparalleled access to a broad range of food science and technology information relating to every aspect of the food chain, including all the major food commodities plus biotechnology, microbiology, food safety, additives, nutrition, packaging and pet foods.
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Featured news / 11 November 2009 / Watson-Marlow Pumps Group
St Helens-based Lea Green Foods is using innovative peristaltic pump technology from the Watson-Marlow Pumps Group to dose oil into vegetable trays with both precision and cleanliness. (more…)
Issue 3 2009 / 10 September 2009 / Adem Gharsallaoui, Temporary Associate Professor, AgroSup Dijon (France)
The food industry uses more and more purified natural and synthetic fragile substances today, and consequently, there is an increased need to protect these ingredients. Functional food ingredients, such as flavours, vitamins or antioxidants, are sensitive to environmental stress during manufacturing, storage and consumption of the food product. Furthermore, loss of bioactivity can occur during digestion in the stomach and intestine. Microencapsulation is a useful tool to preserve the beneficial properties of these food ingredients and to control their release at both the right place and the right time.
Historically, microencapsulation of food ingredients has been employed since the 1930s to encapsulate flavours by spray-drying using acacia gum as the wall material. However, the increasing complexity of food products and the rapid growth in functional foods seen toward the end of the 1990s continues to push researchers and manufacturers to develop novel encapsulation strategies and processes. Microencapsulation has found widespread use in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, but also in many food and beverage applications. Flavour encapsulation is the most well known application of this new technology in the food field. Flavour microencapsulation entraps very small amounts of flavouring compounds in a protective coating of another food grade material, creating micron-size capsules with a flavour profile suitable for a specific use in the food industry. For example, flavour-containing microcapsules can release the core material at the ideal time to provide the maximum impact for the consumer and/or develop a different flavour as the product is being chewed, or also, to formulate new flavour combinations. (more…)
Issue 3 2009 / 10 September 2009 / Pierre Schuck & Romain Jeantet, INRA and Agrocampus Ouest and Eric Blanchard, Laiterie de Montaigu
Pierre Shuck and associates discuss spray drying parameters of dairy products. In part one, featured in this issue of New Food, the authors discuss the rationale behind their studies and introduce a new method of spray drying. Part two will feature in our next issue of New Food and reveal the results and conclusions drawn by the authors.
In this study, a new method was developed to evaluate the ratio of bound to unbound water by using drying by desorption. The results, combined with thermodynamic and physico-chemical parameters (such as absolute and relative humidity of air, total solids and temperature of concentrate, air flow rate, etc.), provide more precise determination of certain spray-drying parameters such as inlet air temperature and mass flow rate. More than 50 experiments were performed to correlate calculated and measured parameters in a pilot plant (Bionov) using water, skimmed milk, infant formula milk, caseinate maltodextrin and other food concentrates. The results showed that the difference between the calculated and measured inlet air temperature was less than five per cent, the determination coefficient being close to 0.96.
The economic value of this system is obvious, because it is easy to anticipate the spray-drying parameters by using a controller integrating the water availability of the concentrate and certain thermodynamic parameters. Software based on this step was developed (SD2P®, Spray Drying Parameter Simulation and Determination) and registered at the APP (Association pour la Protection des Programmes). (more…)
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