SMART TECHNOLOGIES
Scientific innovations for sustainable food systems
The Focus of Area 3 is to leverage the sustainability of the feed and food supply system by incorporating innovative side-stream management approaches for effective waste avoidance. Managing these food safety and food security issues is vital for any society and is interconnected with various social dimensions and economic performance. The research of Area 3 meets, in particular, SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land).
Towards the development of sustainable food systems, one potential game-changing design, which is gaining attention, is the circular economy. In circular food systems, waste, such as food waste, human and animal excreta and the overconsumption of nutrients, is minimised and, if unavoidable, utilised (recycled) in a sustainable way. Feed and food producers, along with other stakeholders, rely on a steady output of scientific advances to achieve sustainable and circular food safety management systems.
Topics
- Sustainable technologies and packaging for food
- Advanced control and minimisation of toxins
- Strategic "blue sky" innovations: from novel technologies to prove authenticity and origin to improved methods of quality and risk assessment
Objectives
- Identifying new, sustainable processing methods and packaging for food
- Confirming the origin and authenticity of food and feed products
- Detection and elimination of biofilms and mould contamination in food production
- High-throughput toxin analysis and non-animal toxicological assessments
Solutions pursued at the centre
- Development of new alternative nutritional concepts, for example with regard to alternative protein sources and the use of by-products from fruit and vegetable processing
- Application of experimental or industrial preparation methods for gastronomy and end consumers
- Development of new sustainable or recyclable food packaging
- Further development of a powerful method for the rapid simultaneous determination of numerous contaminants, with a focus on mycotoxins in various matrices
- Development of a monitoring programme to investigate the occurrence of mycotoxins and plant toxins against the background of climate change
- Degradation of mycotoxins by enzymes from plants and insects
- Combination of complementary analytical techniques to confirm the authenticity and quality of feed and food products
- Characterisation and real-time detection of biofilms using spectral methods
- DNA barcoding, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and LC-MS/MS for identification and characterisation of moulds
- Toxicological assessment systems classified as non-animal in vitro (cell culture systems) and in vivo (chicken embryos, nematodes)
