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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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
4 November 2010 | By Ariette Matser, Miriam Quataert, Remco Hamoen and Huug de Vries, Wageningen UR, Food & Biobased Research
In past years, it has become clear that the variety and complexity of novel processing methods is a major bottleneck for companies in deciding where to invest. Even though the pros and cons of technologies have been highlighted in various books (HPP, PEF-books, EME etc.), the most appropriate technologies for…
4 November 2010 | By Huug de Vries, Project Coordinator, NovelQ and Huub Lelieveld Executive Committee, Global Harmonisation Initiative
On 18 February 2010, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn – the new Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science – gave a speech at the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union. Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn made two striking remarks: “My job title covers research, innovation and science. I am glad that President Barroso decided…
