List view / Grid view
1 May 2012 | By Linda Monaci, National Research Council of Italy (ISPA-CNR)
Food allergen research has considerably expanded its field of interest in recent years probably due to the increasing incidence of food allergies throughout the population. According to the last legislation issued on this issue, there is a current trend to develop reliable methods tailored to the detection of food allergens…
6 March 2012 | By Astrid Stevik, Research Scientist, SINTEF
In 2007, the Norwegian Research Council and several other funders enabled the (so far) largest competence building project in Norway within superchilling of fresh food, KMB Competitive Food Processing in Norway. SINTEF Energy Research has conducted the work together with dedicated industrial and research partners, and after five years of…
5 March 2012 | By Jens Petter Wold, Nofima AS
In the meat industry, the profit margins are small and profitability depends on optimal utilisation of the carcasses. From slaughter to final product, the industry controls much of the production according to certain quality criteria such as muscle quality, fat and connective tissue content. One of the main products from…
4 January 2012 | By Susanna Buratti and Gabriella Giovanelli, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Milan
The rapid pace of change in the wine industry calls for fast methods providing real time information in order to assure the quality of the final product. NIR and MIR spectroscopy combined with sensory-instrumental methods (electronic nose and electronic tongue) can provide an ideal solution to monitor molecular and sensory…
6 September 2011 | By Professor Gerard Downey, Teagasc Food Research Centre Ashtown
The penetration of on-line NIR equipment in the food processing industries continues to grow as companies realise the full potential of this technique. For the most part, it is deployed to monitor concentrations of key components in a raw material or finished food product and, with the use of feedback…
13 May 2011 | By Vegard H. Segtnan and Svein H. Knutsen, Nofima AS, The Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research
Acrylamide is considered a potential carcinogen and is present at elevated concentrations in different types of heat-treated foods. It is formed during baking, frying and roasting of raw materials from plant origin, particularly potatoes and cereals. Acrylamide is one of the reaction products in the Maillard reaction between the acrylamide…
3 March 2011 | By Nicoletta Sinelli and Ernestina Casiraghi, DiSTAM, Department of Food Science and Technology, Università degli Studi di Milano
The meat processing industry has shown an increasing demand for fast and reliable methods to determine product quality characteristics during the last few decades. Traditional quality analyses based on chemistry and microbiology have several drawbacks, the most significant of which are low speed, use of chemical products, high manual dexterity,…
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…
26 August 2010 | By Astrid Stevik, Research Scientist, SINTEF
The discussion of the energy crisis for a steadily growing population is often limited to scarce amounts of electric power based on more or less environmentally friendly energy sources. However, lack of food, and in particular fresh food, is also part of the current energy crisis. Fresh food is one…
12 May 2010 | By Christian H. Grün & Hans-Gerd Janssen, Unilever Research and Development, Advanced Measurement & Data Modelling
The human body is designed for effectively extracting nutrients from the food we eat. The nutrients provide the body with energy, but in addition, they also provide the building blocks for cell growth. More recently, it has also been realised that specific food ingredients can be associated with a direct…
12 December 2009 | By Richard Dempster, Director, Product and Technological Development, AIB International
Often, we get in the habit of accepting numbers from computerised displays without regard to accuracy or precision, and when we do evaluate a number, we often look at how precise it is. We forget that we can be very precisely wrong. We don't really pay close attention to numbers…
10 September 2009 | By T. Hyvärinen & H. Karjalainen, SPECIM, Spectral Iimaging Ltd; D. Nilsson, Umbio AB and K. Lynch, Gilden Photonics
Hyperspectral imaging combines digital imaging with precise spectral information in each image pixel. It enables composition mapping in food and agricultural raw materials and products based on differences in the spectral signatures of the various chemical ingredients. Advances in hyperspectral cameras and image processing solutions are now making hyperspectral imaging…
18 August 2008 | By S.J. Millar, M.B. Whitworth, A. Chau, Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association and J.R. Gilchrist, Gilden Photonics Ltd
Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is widely used in the global agri-food industry for the non-destructive assessment of both the compositional and physical characteristics of a wide range of raw materials and finished products. This is particularly so in the cereals and related industries where, following the commercial development of suitable…
28 February 2008 | By Marjeta Candek-Potokar, Agricultural Institute of Slovenia and Maja Prevolnik, University of Maribor, Faculty of Agriculture, Maribor, Slovenia
Meat quality has many different meanings. To some, quality refers to aspects of the carcass in respect to weight, fat cover and distribution, muscling/conformation and bruising. To others, quality refers to aspects such as chiller assessment attributes ie. meat colour, intermuscular fat colour and marbling. In pork, the attention of…
4 September 2007 | By Dr. Sam Millar, Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association
Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy offers users a rapid, non-destructive means of assessing a range of different food ingredients and finished products. Since its commercial development as a technique in the 1970s, it has been widely applied in a number of food sectors, particularly those related to cereal products. As instrumentation…
