Food Processing: Challenges for Innovation

Today’s consumers demand increasing sophistication in their food. Food and Health, Taste and Flavour, Texture, Safety, Freshness and Naturalness are aspects of food that are scrutinised by an increasingly demanding consumer. New technological developments such as Bio-informatics and Genomics, Recombinant DNA technology, new developments in Enzyme Technology and Fermentation Technology lead to an array of avenues for innovation. New ingredients, new processing aids and new ways of processing add to the arsenal that is available to suit the changing demands of consumers in the food market. This leads to a variety of challenges for innovation. New food concepts need to be developed. New ingredients, processing aids and processes need to be developed based on new combinations of technologies or new breakthroughs in technology. The regulatory framework needs to be in place to allow safe and effective market introduction. And, last but not least, an environment conducive to the acceptance of new products must be available.