sustainability (economic, social and environmental), while being competitive and complying with an international regulatory framework as part of increas-ing international trade.
and Jongen, 2003). In developing countries many agricultural raw materials and fresh products are bought in nearby local markets and consumed at home without major processing as is the case of most fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes and tubers (dotted line). Major staple foods that provide the bulk of calories in traditional diets of these countries are harvested, dried and stored, and undergo only cleaning and milling operations before consumption (e.g.
rice, maize). Tuber and root staples, most notably potatoes and sweet potatoes, store well for extended periods and are peeled and cooked at home. Some components of crops are selectively fractionated and separated by industrial processing, becoming major ingredients of processed foods (e.g. wheat flour, oils and sugar) or high-value additives and flavourings. However, in industrial-ized societies and large urban centres in developing countries, most foods that reach the table have undergone some form of preservation to extend their shelf life and/or transformation to improve convenience and taste. The bulk of the processed foods industry involves fabricating foods by mixing, transformation and structuring technologies. Most foods experience some form of storage and packaging before distribution, which in advanced societies and large urban centres may be quite sophisticated.
For the three billion people presently living on less than US$2 per day, those technologies leading to increased agricultural output of staple foods, together with wider availability of storage facilities and improved postharvest practices, will contribute to their increased access to high-quality and safe food.
Annex 1, based on Figure 3, summarizes our views as to which technologies are likely to have a large impact in the agribusiness sector, with an emphasis on novel or emerging food technologies. As will be seen from Annex 1, many well-established technologies continue to undergo developments with the aim of improving product quality and processing and energy efficiency, while at the
GENERIC TECHNOLOGIES
• Biotechnology
• Bioinformatics
• Nanotechnology
• Energy-saving technologies
• Waste-conversion technologies
• Sensor and analytical technologies
• Robotic and automation technologies
• Information technologies
Consumers Packaging
Transformation/structuring
Thermal/non-thermal preservation
Separation/ingredients Water activity
control Heating/
cooling/
freezing
Raw materials
Storage/distribution
Figure 3. Scheme adopted to group technologies according to their main impact in the agrifood chain.
same time maintaining or improving the level of assurance of product safety. For example, in the traditional processing area of pasteurization and sterilization sig-nificant developments in the manufacture of expanded heat transfer surface per unit volume are occurring. One of the fundamental parts of a heat exchanger is the surface area for heat transfer. Significant advances are being achieved.
Modern manufacturing techniques, such as direct laser deposition (DLD), allow complete freedom of 3D design and manufacture, with surface areas of 10,000 m2/m3 achievable (Schwendner et al., 2001; Unocic and Dupont, 2003).
New construction materials are being explored, such as polymer films instead of stainless steel. The result will be smaller heat exchangers for a given heat load, and at lower build costs. One of the first applications being investigated in the food industry is for recovering waste process energy from food factories.
Biotechnology
Experience to date suggests that biotechnology, if well managed, can be a major contributor to meeting future needs with respect to producing not only crops which are better adapted to a wider range of climatic and soil conditions (drought, salinity, acidity, extreme temperatures), but also crops that have traits for higher and better quality output (FAO, 2000). Modern biotechnology is not limited to the much publicized (and often controversial) activity of producing genetically modified organisms by genetic engineering, but encompasses activi-ties such as tissue culture, marker-assisted selection (potentially extremely important for improving the efficiency of traditional breeding) and the more general areas of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics.
Second-generation genetically modified crops are expected to produce crops with higher levels of needed micronutrients, better quality proteins or crops with modified oils, fats and starches, to improve processing and digest-ibility. Developments will also undoubtedly occur which allow the production of specific functional foods or an enhanced level of bioactive compounds such as antioxidants.
However, the commercialization, promotion and diffusion of genetic modi-fication will be tempered by concerns about the longer-term impacts and pos-sible risks with respect to human health (toxicity, allergenicity) or for the environment (e.g. spread of pest resistance to weeds) and natural resources (modification of habitats). As indicated earlier the degree of caution any society will have about these developments depends on the societal preferences about their perceived risk and benefits (Thomson, 2002).
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics is a powerful discipline that uses computing power to analyse biological data. As yet the full potential of bioinformatics has not been uti-lized by the agrifood sector; however, with a greater use of high-throughput technologies (microarrays, mass spectrometry) and the expansion of relevant
databases (see Annex 2 and Figure 4) this situation is likely to change. There are several areas where bioinformatics will prove invaluable to the food industry, including DNA and protein analysis for food authenticity, traceability and prod-uct development through the use of genetic markers (quantitative trait loci) in breeding programmes (Dooley, 2007). The newly emerging discipline of nutri-tional genomics, which uses many of the high-throughput techniques described above to improve the study of nutritional science and food technology, will also benefit from an increasing awareness and use of bioinformatics in the agrifood sector. Bioinformatics for protein analysis will be of benefit in terms of improv-ing the understandimprov-ing of protein properties durimprov-ing product manufacture; iden-tifying pro teins with specific functional properties, e.g. enzymatic function, identifying potential allergenic proteins or detecting potential bioactive peptides within protein breakdown products. Microbial analysis using bioinformatic tools will also be beneficial to the food industry for rapid pathogen identification and the development of beneficial microbial species for use in food manufacture. All these areas will benefit from increased speed, accuracy and automation brought about by bioinformatic tools that link laboratory-based technologies with ana-lytical methods or reference databases. These will be of advantage to food pro-ducers, retailers, consumers and regulatory authorities, who all wish to ensure that high standards of product quality are maintained.
Further uptake of bioinformatics within the food industry is going to require an increased application of existing techniques along with the active development
0
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
10
Year data submitted to database 20
30
Number of sequences in database (xM)
40 50
Figure 4. Growth of the National Center for Bioinformatic Information (NCBI) I database from 1991 to 2006. The total number of sequences (in millions) deposited in the GenBank (light grey) or protein (dark grey) databases is shown on the y-axis.
of specific food-related bioinformatic tools. Although many bioinformatic tech-niques can be transferred across from other industries, especially pharmaceuti-cals, food by its natural complexity is a unique matrix, which will require unique methods of analysis. For example, the analysis of the effect of a drug is basi-cally a binary system whereby one drug is administered and the resulting change is measured. Food, on the other hand, is a composite material, so it is not easy to determine if the observed changes are due to the specific ingredient of inter-est, other ingredients in the product, the interaction between ingredients or other foods being consumed. Developing approaches to overcome these types of problems will ensure that the application of bioinformatics to the food indus-try will provide an exciting prospect for those involved.
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology refers to the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. The prospect of the wide-scale use of products of evolutionary nanotechnology in food has engendered much debate. The concern is, if changing the size of materials can lead to radical, albeit useful properties, how size will affect other properties and, in particular, the potential toxicity of such materials. Although the products of nanotechnology intended for food con-sumption are likely to be classified as novel products and require testing and clearance, there are concerns, particularly in the areas of food contact materi-als, that there could be inadvertent release and ingestion of nanoparticles of undetermined toxicity. Such concerns need to be addressed, because the ulti-mate success of products based on nanotechnology will depend on consumer acceptance. The recent explosion in the general availability of products derived by nanotechnology makes it almost certain that nanotechnology will have both direct and indirect impacts on the agrifood industry (Anon., 2007d). Recent nano-based products include the following:
● Nanoparticles of carotenoids that can be dispersed in water, allowing them to be added to fruit drinks, providing improved bioavailability.
● A synthetic lycopene has been affirmed GRAS (‘generally recognized as safe’) under US FDA procedures.
● Nano-sized micellar systems containing canola oil that are claimed to pro-vide delivery systems for a range of materials such as vitamins, minerals or phytochemicals.
● A wide range of nanoceutical products containing nanocages or nanoclus-ters that act as delivery vehicles, e.g. a chocolate drink claimed to be suf-ficiently sweet without added sugar or sweeteners.
● Nano-based mineral supplements, e.g. a Chinese Nanotea claimed to improve selenium uptake by one order of magnitude.
● Patented ‘nanodrop’ delivery systems, designed to administer encapsulated materials, such as vitamins, transmucosally, rather than through conven-tional delivery systems such as pills, liquids or capsules.
● An increasingly large number of mineral supplements such as nano-silver or nano-gold.
Potential future benefits from the application of the products of nanoscience and nanotechnology in the agrifood sector include application and effective-ness of agrochemicals, enhanced uptake and bioavailability of bioactive food ingredients, development of new tastes, flavours and textures and active and intelligent packaging, including new types of labelling, which aid traceability of products. There is also currently research on ‘smart’ surfaces that could, for example, detect bacterial contamination and react to combat infection.
Although many of these materials contain nanoparticles, they are generally regarded as safe, provided their use does not lead to the release and injection of these particles. Concern has been expressed over the long-term fate and disposal of these materials, which might then lead to release of nanoparticles into the environment. These types of concerns will continue to stimulate debate on the labelling, approval, traceability and regulation of these nano-materials.
Food and packaging waste
With the increased emphasis on optimizing the use of natural resources and reducing or at least using waste, the EU has adopted a five-stage waste man-agement hierarchy for use by industries in all EU states (see Figure 5).
Although waste reduction or prevention, reuse and recycling have been key aspects of cost reduction in manufacture for many years (Anon., 2006), there is now considerable interest in the possibility of creating energy from food and packaging waste (Anon., 2007b).
There are a range of technologies for the conversion of food waste to usable fuel or energy. The technologies differ in their stages of development, current commercial applicability, the scale at which they operate, the type of waste that can be processed and the form of energy produced. Although fur-ther developments are required, wider uptake in the food and drink industry would assist in reducing waste, increasing energy efficiency and contributing to future environmental and economic sustainability.
Waste reduction or prevention
Reuse
Recycling
Other recovery options – including energy recovery
Safe and environmentally sound
disposal LOWEST PRIORITY
Figure 5. Waste management hierarchy.
Bioethanol production is currently a high-profile technology, particularly in the context of the ‘food versus fuel’ debate. The food industry has raised con-cerns that the growth of the bioethanol industry, and its use of energy crops, will have serious implications for the global food market as the two industries compete for the same commodities. This is especially true in countries where maize or cereals are used as feedstock. It would seem, therefore, that there is a need to divert the bioethanol industry away from the use of crops that could potentially be used for food, and towards the use of industrial waste materials as feedstock. For example, a Finnish energy company has established a pilot ethanol plant using waste produced on site at a Finnish food-processing com-pany. Research should have the ultimate objective of widening the range of feedstock that can be used. Enzyme technology may be developed to improve the speed and efficiency of conversion of cellulosic wastes to a fermentable state, and genetic modification may result in the development of strains cap-able of yielding greater concentrations of ethanol in a shorter time than is cur-rently achievable.
For biomass to fuel processes, the various challenges are the effect of mois-ture, waste types and composition and the inclusion of packaging materials on the efficiency of the process and the quality of fuel produced. A significant project is under way by a poultry processor in the USA to set up an on-site facility for converting animal by-product waste to synthetic crude oil. If success-ful, this technology could be applied to large meat and poultry processors elsewhere.
Anaerobic digestion is a relatively mature technology, for which the major-ity of fundamental research was carried out by the 1980s. Development work now focuses on areas such as effective pasteurization of digestates and the cleaning and upgrading of biogas. Novel reactor designs also allow scaling down and continuous running of the process. Design considerations should also take into account the inherent difficulties in controlling the anaerobic digestion process and sensors and monitoring systems developed that allow close control of feedstock processes according to the compositions of gases that are produced. Standard cultures for inoculating anaerobic digestion pro-cesses may be an area for research that would allow the propro-cesses to be better controlled. The use of manure, feeds and agricultural waste in biogas systems to produce electricity for village and small agro-industries in developing coun-tries, through integrated rural bioenergy systems, is a promising development.
The conversion of waste oils and fats to biodiesel by transesterification is well developed and practised. Areas for research may, however, lie in the clean-ing and treatment of both feedstock and the biodiesel product through filtration and dehydration.
Thermal techniques like gasification and pyrolysis produce fuels that are combusted soon after generation and the energy used as heat or for power generation. Incineration of biomass results in a high amount of heat that must be utilized immediately. The most effective way of utilizing the heat energy from thermal techniques is through a combined heat and power (CHP) system.
The UK government has identified CHP as one of the best technologies to implement for the country to fulfil its commitments to greenhouse gas emissions
under the Kyoto protocol. CHP increases the overall energy efficiency as it can co-generate both electrical power and heat energy. Energy efficiencies have been reported as high as 70–75% compared to the efficiency of sourcing heat and power separately, which are both around 30–40% efficient. Other co-generation systems, such as reco-generation, are also gaining in popularity, as the drive for more efficient use of energy continues. Trigeneration systems are an extension of CHP processes as they provide the option of producing refriger-ation using the heat in an absorption chilling process. This is particularly useful where refrigeration is a high operational priority and where excess heat may have no particular function and would otherwise go to waste.
While there is an awareness of technologies for converting waste to energy among relevant personnel in the food and drink industry, there is a general feeling that the technologies on the market are large-scale and unsuitable for the needs of individual companies. This is particularly serious for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. Small-scale or bespoke systems tend to be priced too highly and outweigh the benefits that they would offer in terms of energy and waste disposal savings. This scenario is likely to continue until the demand for such systems increases and brings down prices.
Alternatively, there is the possibility of groups of neighbouring production sites collaborating on projects to establish centralized plants.
Waste-to-energy conversion systems and their operating parameters are generally tailored to the type and composition of the waste stream that they are designed to process. It is therefore advantageous if production processes continuously generate waste that is of a uniform composition. Processes that generate waste intermittently or that operate multi-product production lines may not realize the full benefits that a waste-to-energy system has the poten-tial to offer.
Information technologies
In today’s global economy, the ability to leverage information is critical to achieving competitiveness. The adoption of information and communication technologies is occurring at an incredible pace and will provide the core of potential for new entrepreneurs. For example, cell phones are now ubiquitous throughout Africa.
Access to these technologies removes constraining barriers between the entrepreneur and the marketplace. For the first time, the ability to connect directly to the markets allows the entrepreneur to achieve what had previously taken several intermediaries to deliver. At a very low cost an entrepreneur can set up a presentable web site that can influence buyers from around the globe.
Of course, the entrepreneur has to be able to consistently deliver the quantity and quality of goods agreed upon in any contractual arrangement, but the fact is that there is now more direct contact between buyer and seller than ever before.
Organic coffee serves as an excellent example of the sort of niche markets that can profitably be accessed through the Internet. Through modern Internet
auctions, farmers and processors have been able to achieve very significant sales volumes and prices. Previously, coffee inevitably changed hands many times between the producer and the buyer. In fact, most coffee sold today still moves under the old trader system. However, more and more coffee is moving directly. In 2007, the highest price paid for coffee was US$130 per pound for 100 lbs (US$13,000) of Panamanian coffee from a smallholder plantation through an Internet auction.