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Methods to evaluate enzyme performance

15 December 2010 | By Sarab Sahi, Principal Research Officer, Baking & Cereal Processing Department, Campden BRI

Enzymes are widely used in the cereals industry to improve processing performance1 and product quality in a range of food products. Industrial baking in particular uses microbial enzymes as processing aids to improve dough properties as well as to improve product quality and shelf-life, and is an area where there…

Ensuring global food safety through multi-residue monitoring of pesticides

15 December 2010 | By Gerry Broski, Food Safety Director, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Renzo Boni, Laboratory Manager, Conserve Italia

There are currently over one thousand recognised pesticides utilised in the production of foodstuffs worldwide, with the requirement for pesticide usage growing as consumer demand for food at a low cost and out of season increases. With pesticides such as lindane and carbendazim linked with cancer, fertility problems and hormone…

Cocoa sustainability at Mars

15 December 2010 | By Peter van Grinsven, Cocoa Sustainability Field Research Manager, Mars Nederland B.V.

At Mars, the sustainability of the cocoa industry is part of the strategy and business practices, with the focus on the viability of smallholder cocoa production systems and the needs of cocoa communities. This fits the company’s principle of mutuality, but there is also a realisation that the future of…

DRIED PASTA: A global food

15 December 2010 | By Maria Ambrogina Pagani, Professor of Cereal Technology, University of Milan

Pasta, the Italian food par excellence, is one of the most interesting products obtained from wheat. Dried pasta has a long shelf-life before being cooked, thanks to its low water content and highly compact texture. Its macromolecules have exceptional hydrating capacities which enable it to increase its weight two-fold and…

The Symbiosis-EU project: Converging technologies for improving meat quality

15 December 2010 | By Antonietta La Storia, Gianluigi Mauriello, Francesco Villani & Danilo Ercolini, Department of Food Science, University of Naples Federico II

The SYMBIOSIS-EU project is a small collaborative project granted by the EU within the 7th frame programme and brings together 14 beneficiaries from six EU countries (plus one each from NZ and US) to study meat quality and safety. The list of partners contributing to the project is reported in…

The need to adapt

15 December 2010 | By Toyota Material Handling Europe

Forklift trucks have been the established method for moving and storing goods in the food and beverage industry for decades, and while the basic concept of a unit load conveyed by two forks has largely remained constant, the types of truck employed have evolved in the quest for improved use…

Predictive modelling of microbial behaviour in foods: an industrial perspective and applications

5 November 2010 | By François Bourdichon & Mohamed Hedi Ben Cheikh, Food Safety Centre, Danone Corporate

Mathematics is everywhere. One might go into the field of biology to avoid numbers and equations, yet they are still there, helping food technologists to decipher the behaviour of micro-organisms in different food matrices and along the process chain. Since the negation of the spontaneous generation theory by Louis Pasteur…

Whole room disinfection – potential for environmental pathogen control?

5 November 2010 | By Alicja Malinowska & John Holah, Campden BRI

To meet retailer, customer and consumer expectations, there are increasing demands within the food industry for higher standards of microorganism control in food production environments. Traditional approaches such as cleaning and disinfection regimes have been targeting specific sites within the processing environment to control contamination. Such sites might include food…

Demonstration of novel technologies and advanced heating has been a key goal for NovelQ

5 November 2010 | By Lilia Ahrné, Director of Department Process and Technology Development, SIK and Ariette Matser, Senior Scientist Novel Processing, Wageningen UR, Food & Biobased Research

One of the goals of NovelQ is to facilitate and speed up industrial exploitation of novel technologies by carrying out extensive demonstration activities with real food products and industrial equipment in close collaboration with the food industry. A variety of activities have been undertaken during the lifetime of NovelQ demonstrating…

How to compare novel and conventional processing methods in new product development: A case-study on orange juice

4 November 2010 | By Ariette Matser & Hennie Mastwijk, Wageningen UR and Diána Bánáti, Director General, Central Food Research Institute and Liesbeth Vervoort & Marc Hendrickx, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

The overall objective of the EU FP6 NovelQ Integrated Project was to formulate strategic solutions for technical and basic research hurdles to enhance the development and successful demonstration of Novel Processing (NP) schemes. A parallel approach was chosen based on providing a sound scientific base and technology transfer. The first…

Novel processing and sustainable food production – a perfect match or not?

4 November 2010 | By Ulf Sonesson, Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK)

Food is indispensible to humans. Aside from the provision of energy and nutrients, it contributes to a range of important aspects of human life such as pleasure, cultural identity and heritage. At the same time, food accounts for a significant global share of total environmental impact and resource use. It…

Novel processed food packaging challenges

4 November 2010 | By Nathalie Gontard, Valérie Guillard, Miguel Mauricio Iglesias, Stéphane Peyron & Sana Raouche Joint Research Unit Agropolymers Engineering and Emerging Technologies – UMR 1208 Montpellier SupAgro, INRA and Salvatore Iannace, Institute of Composite and Biomedical Materials, National Research Council of Italy and Giuseppe Mensitieri & Ernesto Di Maio, Dept. of Materials and Production Engineering, University of Naples Federico II

In the last few years, the fast development of novel processing methods for food preservation to improve safety, quality and shelf life of packaged foods gave place to important gaps of knowledge that must be filled in the area of suitable packaging materials. In particular, in the European Project NovelQ…

Hygienic design of novel processing equipment

4 November 2010 | By Edyta Margas & John Holah, Campden BRI and Alexander Milanov & Lilia Ahrné, SIK

The hygienic design of food processing equipment is a critical factor in determining the quality and safety of foods produced. It involves the selection of suitable materials of construction, their fabrication into a functional piece of equipment, the ability of constructed equipment to produce food hygienically and the maintenance of…

From laboratory-scale to pilot-scale

4 November 2010 | By Ariette Matser & Hennie Mastwijk, Wageningen UR and Milan Houška, Food Research Institute Prague

The implementation of a novel processing technology needs a science-based approach where product benefits initially demonstrated in a laboratory environment and the associated risks are used to predict enhanced quality when the technology is used in large-scale industrial operation. We discuss four novel technologies business cases developed for food application…

Hygienic assembly and transfer of food products: A demonstration system for the automatic processing of vegetables

4 November 2010 | By Anders Pettersson, SlK and John O. Gray, IIT

Food production constitutes the largest European manufacturing sector, employing some four million people and generating an annual turnover of approximately EUR 850 billion of which EUR 50 billion products are exported. The sector is unusual in that a large percentage of its output still depends on manual operations; a situation…