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Recycling and upgrading wastes from food production for use within the food chain (GRUBS UP) Europe's fruit and vegetable industries generate about 30 million tonnes of waste a year. At present, the majority of this waste is landfilled or used as low quality material for compost or animal feed. Handling waste in this manner, without treatment or any segregation, is wasting potentially valuable by-products and biomass. Fruit and vegetable waste has particular potential for being recycled and/or upgraded for re–use in the food chain. Grub's Up will provide useful technical and economic data on the feasibility of using identified technologies for the upgrade of food waste. CCFRA's primary role in this project is to assist with HACCP studies on the potential processes for upgrading waste. The project will foster collaboration between European research groups that are active in waste management. A core part of Grub's Up is effective dissemination of the project findings to the food industry; as a result industry should receive practical relevant guidance on possible methods for adding value to waste. Craig Leadley Control of yeasts and moulds in food factories Spoilage caused by yeasts and moulds is a major concern in foods such as baked and dairy products and soft drinks. Current knowledge of the growth and cross-contamination mechanisms of these organisms in the factory environment is, however, poor. This project, involving both literature reviews and experimental work, will assemble existing and new information on the yeast and mould ecology of food factories. It will lead to an improved understanding of the role of the factory environment in contributing to potential spoilage incidents and suggest appropriate control strategies. Ecological studies will be undertaken at a number of factories involved in the milling/baking, dairy and soft drinks sectors to generate data on the sources and persistence of key yeast and mould genera, including Zygosaccharomyces, Aspergillus, Penicillium and Neurospora. New molecular identification methods based on Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism will be developed and used to determine the origin of yeasts and moulds and any evidence of strain persistence. The relative risks of external airborne yeasts and moulds, compared with internal factory organisms will be determined. From this suitable control methods will be suggested. Debra Smith Tailored process design for improved efficiency and quality Thermal processes are traditionally established by making generally accepted worst case assumptions about the risks associated with the product and the level of microbiological reduction that needs to be achieved. Nevertheless, as thermal processing is often accompanied by an apparent loss of freshness, manufacturers sometimes find it challenging to meet consumers demands for convenient, minimally processed foods. The development of systemised, tailored approaches that take account of the behaviour of micro-organisms in real foods and which give appropriate consideration to risk assessment would help to avoid the 'over cooking' of heat processed foods. The following product types will be selected as case studies: an ambient stable low acid vegetable product; an extended shelf-life chilled food; an ambient stable high acid fruit product and a low acid, ambient stable dairy product. For each, specifically targeted processes will be established to illustrate ways of minimising 'over cooking'. Recommended processes will be developed and challenge tested with the identified target microorganism. Craig Leadley Novel Q – Hygienic design and hygienic materials for novel processing equipment Hygienic design of food processing equipment is a critical factor in determining the quality and safety of the foods produced and the efficacy and energy costs of post-production cleaning and disinfection. Hygienic design involves the selection of suitable materials, their fabrication into a functional piece of equipment, the ability of the constructed equipment to process food hygienically and the maintenance of hygienic conditions through the equipment's working life. Much information and guidance is currently available on the principles of hygienic design, though this is based on traditional food processing equipment utilising principally stainless steel and a small range of plastic and elastomeric construction materials. Due to the advanced nature of the NP techniques developed within Novel Q (e.g. elevated pressures), however, traditional construction materials, seals and lubricants, may not be suitable for the fabrication of such equipment. Alternative materials and fabrication techniques will need to be developed, therefore, and the hygienic design properties of these materials and fabrication techniques will be unknown and will be investigated. Dr. John Holah Understanding the mode of action of cold plasma sterilisation on foodborne pathogens Cold gas plasmas are produced under ambient conditions. Their anti-microbial effects offer an unprecedented opportunity of treating fresh foods so as to reduce the microbial pathogen loading on them without adversely affecting the nutritional and other key characteristics of the food. This project will obtain kinetic information on the inactivation of key microbial species including Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli and spores of Bacillus spp. The resistance of these organisms to disinfection treatments is known to depend on the physiological state of the cells and it will be established whether this is also the case for cold gas plasmas. The effects of parameters such as temperature, salt concentration, and water activity on microbial susceptibility or resistance to cold plasmas will also be explored. Information on the modes of inactivation will be invaluable in 'tuning' the performance of cold plasmas to achieve maximum efficacy under given conditions, so the effect of cold plasmas on cell membranes, nucleic acids and protein expression will be explored. Dr. John Holah New technologies for food manufacturing and sustainable resource management Innovation and new technologies are essential for keeping industry competitive. CCFRA has produced the New Technologies Bulletin since 1990, digesting information from a wide range of sources and making it available in an easy–to–assimilate format, free of charge and only for members, on paper and via the web. In parallel the project has undertaken practical trials of promising technologies and has been used to attract additional funds to maximise value for money for members. This project ensures continuity of this work and will extend it to explore technologies to improve sustainable practices in industry. Craig Leadley A radical approach to industrial breadmaking In the 50 years since its development the Chorleywood Bread Process has become the standard production process for UK plant bread and been adopted in other parts of the world. Although designed for efficiency, aspects of the process are now regarded as intensive and time-consuming – for example, the mixing, proving, baking and cooling steps. This project will set out to develop a modern and unified processing method for large–scale bread production. It will explore revisions to the breadmaking process and/or its constituent operations that could deliver industrial scale improvements including lower unit cost production, better control of product quality and higher production throughputs. Dr. Terry Sharp Understanding the mechanisms of physical decontamination of surfaces The effectiveness of surface decontamination affects product quality and safety. The industry uses larges volumes of water to remove food soils that have been "loosened" by detergents. Reductions in the usage of water and chemicals could restrict environmental impact and operating costs. This PhD studentship will examine the mechanisms involved in soil removal and develop a model to examine the effects of using different cleaning systems and regimes. Dr. Dean Burfoot
Sterilisation time-temperature integrator: development and application The project objective is to develop a sterilisation TTI to a position in which it can be used by food companies to measure thermal processes in food particulates. This involves two main strategies and several approaches in order to ensure success. A commercial route to sustaining long term supply for the industry will be determined. A suitable candidate material for a sterilisation TTI was identified as an amylase extracted from the extremophile organism Pyrococcus furiosus (Pf). This organism grows anaerobically at 95-100°C, therefore is not an easy organism to work with. Two parallel approaches will be used: growing Pf at Birmingham in its native conditions, and obtaining a recombinant amylase from a yeast fermentation at Unilever. Preliminary work in AFM194 showed that Pf amylase had suitable heat stability (D121.1-value) and sensitivity to temperature change (z-value). Experiments to calculate D and z were conducted within the confines of the small quantity of freeze dried powder (FDP) available. Proposed work within the Development LINK project will progress these findings by working with larger quantities of starting material. At the end of the project the intention is to have a TTI, via one or both of the two approaches, that can be used for measuring industrial sterilisation processes. Gary Tucker Scenario building to test and inform the development of a BSI method for assessing GHG emissions from food The British Standards Institution (BSI) is currently working with the Carbon Trust and Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to create a Publicly Available Standard (PAS) for the measurement of embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in products and services. It is entitled PAS 2050: "Specification for the measurement of the embodied greenhouse gas emissions in products and services." This project aims to test the draft BSI PAS 2050 and provide feedback to BSI. It will then use the final draft of the BSI PAS 2050 to assess the GHG impacts of selected food products from pre-farm through to manufacturing, and provide Defra with interim indicators of the relative merits of different potential food supply systems. Sara Tena Effective packaging surface decontamination Guidance for pasteurisation of foods is clear but this is not the case for food packaging. Hot fill is commonly used to pasteurise the packaging, but there are no standard methods for assessing the adequacy of this and other, non-thermal technologies, that are now available. The aim of this project is to enable food companies to quantify the levels of package surface pasteurisation achieved with existing hot fill operations, and assess the effectiveness of novel technologies to maximise effectiveness with minimum energy input. Dr. John Holah Bread making at elevated ambient temperatures The temperature of dough handling affects its development: in warm ambient temperatures dough becomes sticky, difficult to handle, prone to collapse during proving or baking, and likely to form an open, uneven structure. This seems to result from lack of fermentation control - a problem exacerbated when dough salt content is reduced. It is recognised good practice to maintain dough temperatures below 30°C and there is often a requirement to chill the dough to control the temperature with the high energy inputs required for the Chorleywood Bread Process. In warm climates, and the hotter UK summers, there is a need to reduce the variability in dough handling without resorting to energy-consuming chill methods. This project is exploring this. Dr. Charles Speirs Biodegradable and compostable packaging materials for foodstuffs The drive for sustainability has increased interest amongst consumers and food producers for biodegradable and compostable packaging. To use this packaging, industry needs guidance and reassurance on issues such as compatibility with the food and process, functionality and performance, consumer usability and compliance with legislation covering materials in contact with food. This project will explore these issues to provide the necessary guidance and reassurance. It will, for example, produce a guidance document on such packaging, potential for problems in its use and recommendations on appropriate and inappropriate packaging types for different food matrices. It will also generate analytical methods for the measurement of migration of specific compounds and for the assessment of the biodegradability or compostability of a compound. Alan Campbell |