Food Science and technology: research for new, healthy and attractive products
Selma Maric, industrial relations officer at MAX IV, explains what the new working group on Food Science and Technology wants to achieve.
What does your working group want to do?
Increase the overall awareness and competenceof using x-ray and neutron-based techniques in food research and development in both academia and industry.
Engage the food sector in the design of the large scale research infrastructures and create financing paths to actively participate in the development. This includes instruments, sample environments and data analysis for food-studies.
Establish a long-term strategy for collaborative interdisciplinary research within food areas utilizing advanced characterization methods from large scale research infrastructures.
Promote the establishment of a long-term financing system for the use of advanced technologies specifically designed to answer food science grand challenges.
Why was the working group initiated?
The opportunities offered by the establishment of MAX IV and ESS require that all stakeholders in the food sector urgently come together to promote, train and facilitate the use of these facilities. The strong interest for this from the food industry and the food research community was clearly demonstrated in March 2019 through the very high and active participation in the "Northern Lights on Food" workshop in Lund, which aimed to discuss how food research and development can be strengthened through the technologies developed in conjunction with MAX IV and ESS.
The workshop attracted over 100 Nordic food scientists, including industry representatives, scientists and product developers from 22 national and international food companies. The proposed working group is a result of this workshop and the core team consists of representatives from academia, institutes, large-scale research infrastructures and industry.
What research needs are you responding to?
Food is a complex material consisting of proteins, lipids, polysaccharides, and minerals. The food processing and composition results in a structure that together with the chemical properties codes for the properties. During the processing, the structure evolves into the final structure. The structure of foods is often heterogeneous, hierarchical, and multiphase. Structures at different length scales ranging from sub-nanometer up to millimeters cooperate and determines the texture, shelf-life, taste, appearance, mouth-feel, safety etc. of the food.
Furthermore, the relation between food structure and nutritional value and health benefits are not fully understood. Consequently, it is of utmost importance to be able to characterize both the structure at different length scales and the spatial distribution of different components both during structure evolution and in the final food. This must be done to design new, healthy and attractive products, and to optimize processing and formulation to reduce energy consumption, production time and waste for a sustainable food supply chain.
What will be your first event?
A second workshop of Northern Lights on Food will be organised in autumn 2020. It will bring together the key actors in the food sector including academic researchers, institutes, and the food industry with experts in x-ray and neutron-based techniques. The meeting together with our dedicated homepage will ensure the dissemination of large scale research infrastructures possibilities, and increased awareness in the broader food science community.
What do you think is most exciting about the research area?
The challenge of being able to address a very complex material that so far is not fully understood although it is crucial for our daily life. The positive response from all stakeholders is overwhelming and much better than we could have hoped for. Cooking and preparing food for a hungry planet is a serious and complex business that requires the most sophisticated and exciting toolbox that are available today in the future.
The working group on Food Science and Technology falls under the theme Imaging.
About the working group Food Science and Technology
The full understanding of the complexity of food and food processes requires a combination of techniques and a new toolbox with unsurpassed spatial, chemical and time resolution. MAX IV and ESS will provide unprecedented opportunities for materials sciences and a unique opportunity, both to directly deliver new knowledge required for the understanding of food materials and food related processes but also to provide renewal and thus to strengthen overall science driven development of this major industry.
There is an opportunity now to bring leading investigative tools and to attract scientific talent so that major challenges in the food industry and in food science and technology are addressed so as to ensure that Sweden is world-leading in a future industry sector that is technology driven.
However, while the facilities offer advanced technologies for the study of matter it is necessary to build up competences for the use of these techniques in the Swedish food science and food industry sector. It is also of importance to start developing the necessary experimental environments and shape the facilities so that they are suitable to tackle the food specific challenges and development.
Selma Maric, industrial relations officer at MAX IV.