Back to the future

An uncoordinated approach, inadequate communication, limited understanding of the benefits of innovation and resistance to change often impede progress in the food industry.

Solutions are written off without a thorough cost-benefit analysis and where less expensive uses of technology are subsequently found, they continue to be shunned.

In turn, firms miss the benefits of other advances because they spark a storm of media-driven controversy and are quietly shelved.

That's why it's vital for researchers, engineers, trade groups, government and processors to work together to distinguish the snakes from the ladders and capitalise on the best ideas to address future needs.

Brian McKenna, emeritus professor of food science at University College Dublin, is evangelical about techniques with future potential, lamenting the closure of fruitful avenues because of consumer hysteria. For example, he says: "The food industry lost irradiation years ago. It was a perfectly good technology that was demonised."

Irradiation bombards food with electron beams, X-rays or gamma rays to create short-lived molecules known as free radicals, which kill germs and slow down vegetable spoilage.

Googling the subject reveals an article from the Independent newspaper from 2001 referring to consumer fears that irradiation would encourage lax hygiene and nutritional standards - a case in point.

The process has been limited to a handful of items in Europe and further investigation has been put on the back burner. In an era in which wastage and increased pathogen risk caused by climate change loom large, long shelf-life and disease prevention measures are crucial, so the procedure should be reinvestigated, argues McKenna.

His remarks are supported by recent research by Michigan State University claiming X-ray irradiation can kill pathogens even in delicate fresh produce without harming product, where gamma rays affect quality.

Nanotechnology could go the same way as irradiation without an open, informed debate, he says. "We're in danger of losing nanotechnology to the food industry because it's demonised, even though 95-99% of nanoparticles are just natural food broken down to a smaller size."

Media scare stories in 2008 highlighted the unknowns associated with nanotechnology, particularly that the long term effects on the human body are uncharted territory.

The science deals with the manipulation of particles measuring one billionth of a metre or smaller, which often generate the same flavours or odours from lesser quantities. The technique can be used for microencapsulation to deliver ingredients with health benefits. Consequently, its popularity will grow with consumer demand for functional foods, says McKenna. Fortunately, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has instigated a wide ranging investigation into the risks of nanoscience and nanotechnology for the food industry, with an opinion due soon.

McKenna's comments were made at the First European Food Congress in Ljubljana, Slovenia last November. One of its core themes was the potential of neglected technologies and further innovations in food processing.

"The big things in the future will include gentler processing techniques such as high pressure processing (HPP) and high intensity pulsed electric fields( HIPEF)," predicts McKenna. They will see a resurgence in popularity as costs for these methods fall, he says. Consumers will increasingly demand more robust food safety measures together with the highest possible food quality, and these gentler techniques, versus intense heat treatment, would achieve these aims. "The consumer wants minimal processing, but they still want safety," he adds.

Professor Zeljko Knez, of the faculty of chemistry and chemical engineering at Maribor university, Slovenia, presented a paper on HPP at the Ljubljana conference. Referring to its use for sterilising fruit juice, he says: "Operation costs are much lower than for other processes and vitamin content is kept."

Commonly, 'supercritical' water or carbon dioxide - the cheapest materials - are pumped with food or drink into a steel vessel at pressures of 4.83 bars or more. This disables germs or small insects or can be used to extract particular ingredients, says Knez.

HPP, which first appeared in the 1990s, takes six minutes, versus high-temperature heat treatment, which takes an hour or more and causes product degradation, he says. Latest applications include extraction of caffeine to create decaffeinated coffee, hop extraction in brewing, the removal of pesticides from rice and the extraction of oil, antioxidants and anthocyanins from seeds, nuts and fruits. Distilled colour or aroma molecules can also be isolated, says Knez.

Professor Dietrich Knorr, of the department of food biotechnology and food process engineering at Berlin University of Technology and chairman of the conference's programme committee, says: "There are 125 industrial scale units exclusively used for HPP, which has 10% of the energy requirement of other systems. This form of sterilisation is on the verge of industrialisation."

High pressure processing applications​

Combining HPP with temperature modulation can deactivate malformed proteins - or prions, which can lead to diseases such as BSE - and viruses in food, says Knorr, who adds: "A future application for this could be fighting avian flu."

Pre-treatment with HPP before heat applications can increase food enzymes' heat resistance, enabling greater heat to be applied more quickly in processes such as brewing and distilling, speeding them up, he says.

Knorr adds: "The key advanced technologies for the food industry in the future will be HPP, HIPEF and ultrasound."

HIPEF can fundamentally alter product structure, he says. "Short, high intensity pulses can affect cell membranes, enabling sterilisation and the deactivation of pathogens and enzymes. You can introduce or remove metabolites [products of, or substances which aid, the metabolism] and you can increase the amounts of phytosterols or polyphenols [substances thought to have beneficial effects on cholesterol, the heart and circulation]."

HIPEF can bring sugar closer to food surfaces, so products can taste sweeter with less sugar. Crucially, it is quicker and less energy intensive than freezing and thawing; heat treating or the application of enzymes, says Knorr. That means it produces higher yields more swiftly at less cost - offering considerable environmental benefits.

Ultrasound, meanwhile, is increasingly used by the food industry to measure product structure in minute detail, identifying spoilage and microbial activity at an early stage. It also provides tremendous data on traits such as texture, crispness, crunchiness and viscosity.

Clearly, considerable progress is underway in several areas that could transform food processing. But to build on this, make the most of subsequent developments and avoid duplication and wasted effort and resources, cooperation, collaboration and effective communication are vital.

Which is why it's heartening to hear of cross-cutting industry partnerships that are promoting change, rather than individual players carrying out work in isolation.

To this end, McKenna is enthusiastic about the European Technology Platform's Food For Life Vision for 2020 (see Food Manufacture, January 2009, p39). He is calling on all parts of the industry to get involved in the far-reaching programme, particularly in areas including healthy eating and disease prevention; food safety; and sustainable food production. The hope is that the programme will act as an umbrella initiative driving national food platforms for innovation, which are plugged into it.

Innovation sharing​

Moves are afoot to expose innovation to even wider involvement. The Food Standards Agency's Advisory Committee on Novel Food and Food Processes is holding an open discussion of new developments on February 18. And in the UK, several groups are acting as network hubs, uniting interested parties. In the East Midlands, there's the Championing Innovation Between Engineering and Food Sectors project, run by the Food Processing Knowledge Transfer Network, The Food and Drink Forum and Optimat. Meanwhile, the Regional Food Group for Yorkshire & Humber is actively co-ordinating communication for innovation and research in its area.

Clear and open cooperation obviously offers the best way forward. That way research can be thorough and no stone is left unturned with which the media can trip up the industry. But where that has happened, McKenna's message is: don't be afraid to revisit old areas if things have moved on as well as rigorously examining new spheres. In this way, the industry can truly seize hold of its future potential.