The ability of future generations to meet their needs is inherent in the definition of sustainability from 1987. Today the sustainability of a product, a process or a system is assessed according to three dimensions: environment, social and economical sustainability. The lack of environmental sustainability in the present food production system is demonstrated by the heavy dependence on fossil fuel input for fertilizer manufacture and transportation. Global food production is estimated to contribute to about 25% of the emission of “greenhouse gases.” The food production is also the major culprit for problems of eutrophication due to leakage of nutrients into lakes and rivers. Waste in the food chain is another major obstacle for increased sustainability. The socioeconomic dimension of sustainability implies fairness in the economic transaction in the food chain and social justice regarding working conditions. In spite of many efforts by NGOs, governments and the food industry, there are many examples where reasonable sustainability demands are not met today. There are a number of future challenges for improving food production towards a better sustainability in the future.

To overcome present difficulties in robotized food handling a force sensing robot gripper for flexible production is presented. A magnetic coupling is used to completely encapsulate the actuator mechanism, improving hygiene and enabling a future hose-down proof design. Product location, orientation and product type and width are extracted by a vision system to aid the gripping process. Knowing the product type the grip force is set individually for each product. In the paper data of achievable grip strength, positioning accuracy and gripping times for force controlled gripping are presented. Grip times of 410–530 ms for grip forces of 50–700 g respectively are realized. An initial microbiology study on a model system showed that an intermediate decontamination can be used to reduce the cross contamination of Listeria innocua (SIK215) significantly. The gripper is further shown to be able to handle an in-feed mixture of tomatoes, apples, carrots, broccoli and grapes without intermediate adjustments. Industrial relevance: This paper covers the development and evaluation of a hygienically designed universal robot food gripper. The gripper enables an increased use of robots in the food industry and makes very flexible production with minimal changeover times possible.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is the increase the flexibility of robots used for handling of 3D (food) objects handling by the development and evaluation of a novel 3D Bernoulli gripper.Design/methodology/approach - A new gripper technology have been designed and evaluated. A deformable surface have been used to enable individual product handling. The lift force generated and the force exerted on the product during gripping is measured using a material tester instrument. Various products are tested with the gripper. A experimental/theoretical approach is used to explain the results.Findings - A deformable surface can be used to generate a lift force using the Bernoulli principle on 3D objects. Using a small forming a significant increase in the lift force generated is recorded. Increasing the forming further was shown to have little or even negative effects. The forces exerted on the product during forming was measured to be sufficiently low to avoid product damage.Research limitations/implications - To be able to improve the grippers lift strength a better model and understanding of the flow is needed.Originality/value - A novel Bernoulli gripper for 3D Bernoulli gripping have been designed and evaluated. The gripper enables flexible and delicate handling of various product shapes, 3D as well as 2D. Increased utilization of robots in the food industry can be gained.

Today there is a strong trend in Sweden for industrially processed meals to replace homemade meals. In the public debate this is often claimed to increase the environmental impact from foods. In the study presented in this article, we used life-cycle assessment to quantify the environmental impact of three meals: homemade, semiprepared, and ready-to-eat. The differences in environmental impact between the meals were small; the ready-to-eat meal used the most energy, whereas the homemade meal had higher emissions causing eutrophication and global warming. The dominating contributor to the environmental impact was agriculture, accounting for 30%, of the impact related to energy and 95% of that related to eutrophication. Industry, packaging, and consumer home transport and food preparation also contributed significantly. Important factors were raw material use, energy efficiency in industry and households, packaging, and residue treatment. To decrease the overall environmental impact of food consumption, improvements in agriculture are very important, together with raw-material use within industry and households.

Journal of Food ScienceVolume 69, Issue 5 p. R152-R153 Summary: Plenary Lecture 3 Discussion Session Session Chair Daryl Lund, Session Chair Daryl LundSearch for more papers by this authorLecturer Richard Black, Lecturer Richard BlackSearch for more papers by this authorDiscussants Thomas Ohlsson, Discussants Thomas OhlssonSearch for more papers by this authorJorge Mancini Filho, Jorge Mancini FilhoSearch for more papers by this author Session Chair Daryl Lund, Session Chair Daryl LundSearch for more papers by this authorLecturer Richard Black, Lecturer Richard BlackSearch for more papers by this authorDiscussants Thomas Ohlsson, Discussants Thomas OhlssonSearch for more papers by this authorJorge Mancini Filho, Jorge Mancini FilhoSearch for more papers by this author First published: 31 May 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2004.tb10730.x Edited by Manfred Kroger, Ph.D., Editor of the Proceedings of the 12th World Congress of Food Science and Technology AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume69, Issue5June 2004Pages R152-R153 RelatedInformation

The application of intense pulsed electric fields (PEF) in foods is intended to be a non-thermal method to inactivate microorganisms. However, it is well known that an increase in temperature is present in this process due to ohmic heating, where the pulsed electric field energy input is transformed into heat. The aim of this study was to investigate the computer modeled temperature increase in the outflow for different flow-through PEF treatment chamber designs. Given equal experimental conditions, the temperature increase is indicative of the PEF dose, and a more uniform temperature profile is thus indicative of a more homogeneous PEF treatment. The radial distribution of the temperature increase was simulated in computer models of four different chambers. The temperature increase was found to be more homogeneous in the treatment chambers making use of a decrease in the insulator diameter, i.e. a design letting the insulators and electrodes intersect at angles close to 90°. The maximum temperature increase was found close to the wall, where the flow velocity is low. Cooling of the electrodes and electric insulators is recommended to avoid too high a temperature increase. The minimum temperature increase found was 29% of the calculated average in the worst case studied here. The minimum PEF dose to which the food was subjected would thus is less than the intended dose, since the food clearly was not subjected to the intended electric field strength during the intended exposure time. This is an important result in terms of food safety in the sense that a minimum PEF treatment should be guaranteed. The microbiological inactivation was experimentally evaluated using two of the treatment chamber designs. The result is consistent with the simulations and shows a small increase in inactivation and less needed energy input giving less average temperature increase for the chamber implementing a contraction of the diameter of the insulating spacer.

This chapter provides an overview of microwave applications in the food industry. Microwave and microwavable food today constitute an important segment of the food market in Japan, the US and increasingly in Western Europe. The growing number of microwave ovens and microwave foods greatly influenced the food packaging industry. Requirements of microwave compatibility changed the way in which the food industry selects food packaging. For prepared foods, microwave-transparent plastic and paperboard packaging has grown at the expense of aluminum packaging. A vast number of packaging designs, specific to microwave heating, have been developed. The most striking example is the so-called susceptor package, in which an extremely thin metalized film on a PET film is heated by the microwaves to temperatures sufficient to crisp or brown pizza or pie crusts, or to pop pop-com. The food technology differences between microwave and conventional heating are manifested by differences in development of food flavor and aroma and of food texture and appearance. Thus, modified recipes and special "microwave-adapted" food ingredients have been developed by the industry to overcome at least in part some of the quality problems of microwave-heated foods. This very substantial development of foods, packaging and ingredients for microwave heating has given an increased general knowledge about microwave heating in the industry.

A case study of white bread has been carried out with the purpose of comparing different scales of production and their potential environmental effects. The scales compared are: home baking, a local bakery and two industrial bakeries with distribution areas of different sizes. Data from the three bakeries and their suppliers have been collected. The systems investigated include agricultural production, milling, baking, packaging, transportation, consumption and waste management. Energy use and emissions have been quantified and the potential contributions to global warming, acidification, eutrophication and photo-oxidant formation have been assessed.

Two different methods for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) applied to the dairy industry was performed at two dairies. In the simplified method, total environmental loads from a dairy was registred and allocated to liquid milk. Energy and emissions are measured for each process step for the detailed method. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. The simplified method captures all energy and emissions of dairy processing, but treats the dairy as a “black box”. The energy consumption was found to be 1, 27 MJ/1 and 2,55 MJ/1 for the two dairies. By use of the detailed method it is easy to “loose” information, and it is very time consuming. The energy consumption was lower than for the simplified method. The environmental loads can on the other hand be divided on the different process steps. The main conclusion is that choice of method depends on the purpose of the LCA-study.

Microwave-assisted hot-air dehydration of apple and mushroom was performed with low-power microwave energy. The purpose of the investigation was to compare hot-air drying and microwave-assisted hot-air drying. The air velocity, the microwave output power and the air temperature were the variables in the experiments. The microwave energy was supplied by either microwave applicators with transverse magnetic (TM) modes as dominant modes, or by a multimode cavity microwave oven. The quality parameters were rehydration capacity, bulk density, and colour. Low air velocity caused a browning of the products and a minimum air velocity of 1 m/s was identified. It was possible to reduce the drying time by a factor of two for apple and a factor of four for mushroom by using microwave-assisted hot-air drying. Rehydration capacity was 20–25% better for TM applicator-dried apples and mushrooms than for multimode cavity dried ones.

A screening life cycle assessment (LCA) of tomato ketchup has been carried out. The purpose was to identify `hot-spots', that is parts of the life-cycle that are important to the total environmental impact. The system investigated includes agricultural production, industrial refining, packaging, transportation, consumption and waste management. Energy use and emissions were quantified and some of the potential environmental effects assessed. Packaging and food processing were found to be hot-spots for many, but not all, of the impact categories investigated. For primary energy use, the storage time in a refrigerator (household phase) was found to be a critical parameter.