Food Processing Technology

Research into innovative and existing food processing technologies, applications, food safety and food quality in the entire food chain is being undertaken to develop new ways for sustainable food processing and healthy products.

Wageningen Food & Biobased Research has lab-scale and pilot-scale processing equipment and a large range of analytical methods, sensors and models. These are applied to:

Mild processing and preservation

New, mild process technologies, like high pressure pasteurisation and sterilisation (HPP), pulsed electrical fields (PEF), plasma processing and mild heat treatments could be used for preservation of food products. These technologies aim for a lower heat load, in comparison with standard thermal pasteurisation or sterilisation processes, in order to inactivate micro-organisms without compromising the product quality. In addition, Wageningen experts apply these technologies as processing steps for other applications, like extraction and drying.

Resource efficient food and side-stream processing

Examples of these include: reduction of energy and water use, enhancing the efficiency of the use of natural resources, increasing the process yield and improving the shelf life. Wageningen experts analyse both existing and new food chains and can advise partners how best to adjust processing for the purpose of improving sustainability.

Applied food processing technologies

Wageningen Food & Biobased Research works on the improvement of food processing technologies like freezing, mild drying, heat treatment and fermentation. The use of data, sensors and modelling is essential to achieve insight into the process-product interaction thereby improving sustainability and food quality.

Mild separation

Wageningen experts develop new mild separation and fractionation processes to obtain high-quality ingredients in a sustainable way. Examples are dry separation technologies and the application of mild separation technologies to side streams.

Food structuring

Technologies like 3D printing, extrusion and shear cell technology are applied to structure ingredients and to produce fibrous materials. Analysis methods are developed and applied to characterise food structures of different length scales. With these new food structuring technologies Wageningen experts can make, for example, meat analogues based on plant proteins.