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Sustainable Food Processing and Engineering

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 14316

Special Issue Editor

INRA, French National Institute for Agricultural Research, Joint Research Unit 1145 Food Processing and Engineering, Massy, France
Interests: safe-by-design, ecodesign, food packaging, risk assessment, minimal food processing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Food processing and engineering have been and are still the solution to feeding the world. Food production and technologies have evolved from traditional post-harvesting processing to new consumption systems. The routes “from farm to fork” frequently reach, however, thousands of kilometers and are included within a multistage scheme of processing and packaging. Various substances (ingredients, additives, preservatives) are, in addition, intentionally added or non-intentionally transferred (contaminants) to processed food. Despite its numerous successes, the complexity of the value chain affects its efficiency with higher risks (food waste, nutritional loss, higher contaminations, possibly more allergens) and higher impacts (transportation, additional stabilization treatments, more packaging materials, and wastes). This Special Issue reports new sustainable food production strategies and discusses their readiness level. Without being exhaustive, they include: minimally and integrated food processing; aseptic packaging as an alternative to thermal treatments; packaging optimized for food transformation and zero waste; zero packaging solutions; emerging food processes; ecodesign of food plants, sustainable food production and supply chains; bridging food and biorefinery industries; home as a food factory; revisiting shelf-life concepts to reduce food wastes, formulation, and processing requirements; cloud computing and artificial intelligence for food production on demand; and education in responsible food engineering.

Dr. Olivier Vitrac
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Responsible food engineering
  • Ecodesign of food, packaging, process, and plant
  • Life cycle assessment of food production systems
  • Clean food plants
  • Computer-aided design of agricultural and food processes
  • Efficient food-supply chains
  • Safe-by-design and global risk assessment
  • Multicriteria optimization and integrated engineeringw

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Review

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22 pages, 931 KiB  
Review
Applications of Nonconventional Green Extraction Technologies in Process Industries: Challenges, Limitations and Perspectives
by Gertrude Fomo, Tafirenyika Nyamayaro Madzimbamuto and Tunde Victor Ojumu
Sustainability 2020, 12(13), 5244; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12135244 - 28 Jun 2020
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 4628
Abstract
This study reviewed five different nonconventional technologies which are aligned with green concepts of product recovery from raw materials on industrial scale, with minimal energy consumption and chemical use. Namely, this study reviewed supercritical fluid extraction (SCFE), pressurized liquid extraction (PLE), microwave-assisted extraction [...] Read more.
This study reviewed five different nonconventional technologies which are aligned with green concepts of product recovery from raw materials on industrial scale, with minimal energy consumption and chemical use. Namely, this study reviewed supercritical fluid extraction (SCFE), pressurized liquid extraction (PLE), microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), ultrasound extraction (UAE) and pulsed electric fields extraction (PEFE). This paper provides an overview of relevant innovative work done in process industries on different plant matrices for functional value-added compounds and byproduct production. A comparison of the five extraction methods showed the supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) process to be more reliable despite some limitations and challenges in terms of extraction yield and solubility of some bioactive compounds when applied in processing industries. However, these challenges can be solved by using ionic liquids as a trainer or cosolvent to supercritical CO2 during the extraction process. The choice of ionic liquid over organic solvents used to enhance extraction yield and solubility is based on properties such as hydrophobicity, polarity and selectivity in addition to a safe environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Food Processing and Engineering)
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26 pages, 4556 KiB  
Review
Pinch Methods for Efficient Use of Water in Food Industry: A Survey Review
by Keivan Nemati-Amirkolaii, Hedi Romdhana and Marie-Laure Lameloise
Sustainability 2019, 11(16), 4492; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11164492 - 19 Aug 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 6231
Abstract
The implementation of sustainable water management practices, through the recycling and reuse of water, is essential in terms of minimizing production costs and the environmental impact of the food industry. This problem goes beyond the classical audit and housekeeping practices through developing a [...] Read more.
The implementation of sustainable water management practices, through the recycling and reuse of water, is essential in terms of minimizing production costs and the environmental impact of the food industry. This problem goes beyond the classical audit and housekeeping practices through developing a systemic water-using reduction strategy. The implementation of such an approach needs R&D development, especially for the food industry, where there is a lack of knowledge on: (a) process integration and (b) data on the pollutant indicators or (c) volumes of water used and discharged at specific steps of the food processing line. Since energy pinch analysis emerged, different variations of pinch methods have been developed. As a variation of pinch, Water pinch analysis is a global and systematic approach to minimize water consumption and discharges, especially for the most energy-intensive and water-consuming factories. Based on the nature of the food industry, the real systems are complex, multi-source multi-contaminant systems, the problem should be well formulated, including mathematical constraints (inequalities thresholds). Current work has reviewed comprehensive literature about different variations of pinch analysis. In continue, water pinch method deeply discussed and some relevant data concerning the water using process and pollutant indicators have been reviewed with emphasis on the food industry sector. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Food Processing and Engineering)
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Other

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23 pages, 1137 KiB  
Perspective
A Novel Concept for Sustainable Food Production Utilizing Low Temperature Industrial Surplus Heat
by Adriana Reyes-Lúa, Julian Straus, Vidar T. Skjervold, Goran Durakovic and Tom Ståle Nordtvedt
Sustainability 2021, 13(17), 9786; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13179786 - 31 Aug 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2005
Abstract
Low temperature industrial surplus heat represents a major energy source that is currently only rarely utilized due to its low quality. An agricluster allows for the leveraging of this low-quality heat and, hence, may improve the overall energy efficiency. This paper presents the [...] Read more.
Low temperature industrial surplus heat represents a major energy source that is currently only rarely utilized due to its low quality. An agricluster allows for the leveraging of this low-quality heat and, hence, may improve the overall energy efficiency. This paper presents the novel concept of an agricluster driven by available surplus heat from industrial processes. We propose the integration of greenhouse production, insect rearing, fish rearing, and drying of seaweed using low temperature surplus heat from the aluminum industry. Each of these processes is already used in or investigated for utilization of surplus heat and partly coupled with other processes, such as in aquaponics. However, the integration of all processes in an agricluster—as proposed in this paper—may result in improved utilization of the surplus heat due to the different seasonality of the heat demand. The potential synergies of this integration approach are discussed in this paper. Furthermore, waste from one process can be utilized as an input stream to other processes, reducing the demand for external material input to the system. The proposed concept of an agricluster is especially interesting for the Nordic countries, as they are dependant on fresh food imports due to the low outside temperatures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Food Processing and Engineering)
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