Co-Moderators:
- Professor Dr. Carol Wallace, Professor and IUFoST Chair, Food Safety Committee 2018 – 2020
- Professor Cristina L.M. Silva, Professor and IUFoST Chair, Education Committee 2018 – 2020
Time: 13:30 - 14:00
Title: Linking culture to food safety management practice
Synopsis: The need for food safety capacity building resulted in the establishment of the multi-stakeholder Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP), facilitated by the World Bank, to respond to operational and country needs to safeguard public health. The International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST) and International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) were commissioned to lead an initiative to benchmark existing food safety programming, identify gaps in food safety curricula and establish and harmonize core competencies with a view to benchmarking BSc/MSc Programmes in Food Safety. This presentation will update on the progress of the Global Food Safety Curricula Initiative.
Speaker: Professor Carol Wallace, Food Safety Management Systems and Co-Director of the International Institute of Nutritional Sciences and Applied Food Safety Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom
Time: 14:05 - 14:35
Title: Decontamination technologies of fresh produce: the example of (assisted) ultrasound
Synopsis: Post-harvest interventions are crucial to reduce microbiological contamination, potentially extend shelf-life and minimize cross contamination during processing, which, in addition to the field-associated contamination (e.g., via irrigation water) it is considered as one of the most frequent contributory factors to food-borne outbreaks. State-of-the-art methodologies applied for decontamination of fresh produce will be reviewed during this lecture by covering the applications of sanitizers, and antimicrobial solutions. Recent advances in the application of non-thermal technologies with a specific focus on ultrasound will also be presented. Macroscopic and microscopic analyses that have been performed during the application of ultrasound and assisted (by the use of essential oils) ultrasound treatments will be presented in tandem with sensory evaluations. Microbial safety will be discussed in relation to the reduction of microbial contaminants which are present on the surface of lettuce leaves. Moreover, the impact of ultrasound process on the biological structure of these biological material will be addressed. Finally, the talk will summarize and revisit any commercial applications of decontamination methods in the fresh produce industry and identify the current industrial needs and future prospects identified at research and industrial level.
Speaker: Associate Professor Vasilis Valdramidis, Department of Food Sciences and Nutrition, Faculty of Health Sciences University of Malta
Time: 14:40 - 15:10
Title: Sustainable emulsions made without surfactant to meet consumer demands
Synopsis: The emulsifying properties of a minimal-processed food byproduct were studied in order to generate added value. The main objective was to stabilize emulsions without surfactant using only apple powder. 16 products were made with different oil and powder contents. We obtained a toolbox giving predictive models of the main characteristics of the emulsions, such as viscosity, gel strength and fat globules size. The experiments were carried out during 2 months. 4 formulas were selected in order to be submitted to accelerated aging tests and 1 of them was successfully scaled-up towards pilot scale (12 L).
Speaker: Professor Delphine Huc-Mathis, AgroParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Sciences), Paris, France
Time: 15:15 - 15:45
Title: Design of functional and sustainable food ingredients by extrusion technology
Synopsis: Recent trends in food extrusion technology and research have been mainly directed to the development of sustainable and functional foods, which address the increased consumer awareness of the role of food products and processes on the environment, health, and well–being. Extrusion technology offers the flexibility to process a wide range of raw materials to desired product characteristics and functional properties. However, although the history of food extrusion processing goes back to the late-1800s, the control of this process and design of new extruded products are still mostly based on empirical knowledge. During extrusion, there are strong interactions between mass, energy and momentum transfer, coupled with complex physicochemical transformations, which govern thermomechanical properties of the food materials. This limits the application of the empirical approach. With increased complexity, empirical approach generally fails to provide the fundamental understanding and is not efficient in finding a rational compromise between the large numbers of parameters influencing the structure and functionality of the food product. To utilize the potential of the extrusion process, we have developed a research approach and tools allowing us to characterize the process at mechanistic level. The approach is based on the fractionation of the process into fundamental sections and analysis of the dynamic interrelations between the process conditions and the change in material structure and properties in these sections. This contribution will focus on this approach and the corresponding tools developed with respect to the design of sustainable and functional food ingredients.
Speaker: Dr. M. Azad Emin, Institute of Process Engineering in Life Sciences, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Time: 15:50 - 16:20
Title: Shelf life dating- new tools for best quality and waste reduction
Synopsis: Reliable information on the cold chain conditions, the main shelf life-determining post-processing parameter, is an essential prerequisite for effective shelf-life management of food products. Uncertainty in shelf life declaration has been recognized as a significant contributor of food product waste. The application of an optimized quality and safety assurance system for the distribution of chilled and frozen products requires continuous monitoring and control of storage conditions. At all stages of the cold chain, quantitative information on deviations between real cold chain data and targeted specifications is sought. A systematic data collection and processing will allow the identification and management of the cold chain of chilled and frozen products. Within FRISBEE, a Food Refrigeration Innovation for Cold Chain European project, a user-friendly web-based cold chain database (www.frisbee-project.eu) was built and is maintained by NTUA. Data and meta-data from all stages (production to consumption) of the cold chain originating from researchers, industry, distributors, retailers, and consumers linked to appropriate shelf-life predicting tools offers the potential to effectively manage and improve cold chain weak links using appropriate shelf life decision systems leading to an optimized handling.
Trough the use of smart labels, Time-Temperature Integrators (TTI), providing an easily measurable, time-temperature dependent signal reflecting the temperature history of the food product, the integral effect of temperature can be quantitatively translated to food safety and quality, from production to the point of consumption. SLDS (Shelf Life Decision System) and SMAS (Safety Monitoring and Assurance System) are TTI chill chain management systems that lead to an optimized handling of products in terms of quality and safety risk allowing for a more realistic approach to shelf life labelling and reduction of unduly waste.
Speaker: Professor Petros Taoukis, Laboratory of Food Chemistry and Technology, School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Time: 16:25 - 17:00
Title: Pulsed electric field processing of foods
Synopsis: Pulsed electric field (PEF) is an innovative non-thermal treatment of food plants and bio-suspensions of a very short duration (from several microseconds to several milliseconds) with pulse amplitude range from 100-300 V/cm to 20-80 kV/cm. Under the effect of PEF, the biological membrane of plants and microorganisms is electrically pierced and loses its semi-permeability temporarily or permanently. The electrical permeabilisation of biological membranes (called electroporation) may be reversible or irreversible. In biological systems, the electroporation can induce different effects: the small and/or large molecules can be introduced into the cells or extracted from them, proteins can be inserted into the membrane, and cells can be fused. One of the most important functional features of electroporation is creating good conditions for selective recovery of smaller or larger compounds through cellular membrane and cell wall structure. Conventional mechanical and thermal treatments lead to the breakage of both cell membranes and cell walls and lead to the uncontrolled release of intracellular and extracellular substances. PEF differs from other treatments by better-controlled damage of cellular membranes and preservation of cell walls from important destruction.
Potential of food and environmental applications of electroporation is very important: cold extraction of sugar from sugar beets; selective extraction of valuable compounds from various food plants, co-products, and microalgae; non-thermal preservation of liquid foods; enhancing of mass and heat transfer, etc. This presentation will be mainly focused on the food ingredients subjects: recovery of natural compounds (carbohydrates, polyphenols, proteins, colorants,..) from plant tissues, impregnation of sugars, salts and fat by food matrix, preservative food processing with a pulsed electric field.
Speaker: Professor Eugene Vorobiev, Chemical Engineering Department and ahead of the group Agro-Industrial Technologies at the University of Technology of Compiegne (UTC), France.
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