Food Science is a multidisciplinary field that combines chemistry, biochemistry, nutrition, microbiology, and engineering to provide the scientific understanding needed to tackle real-world challenges related to the food system's numerous sides. The discipline is founded on an understanding of the chemistry of food components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and water, as well as the reactions that occur during processing and storage. A thorough understanding of processing and preservation procedures, such as drying, freezing, pasteurisation, canning, irradiation, and extrusion, to name a few, is essential. The ability to do food constituent analysis is developed alongside statistical quality control methods.
Food technology is an area of food science that deals with the production of food products, like preservation, quality control, and research and development. Our food system, like humanity, has grown over millennia into a global system of enormous scale and complexity. Food science and technology specialists' dedication to developing food science, guaranteeing a safe and abundant food supply, and contributing to healthier people everywhere is critical to that progress. Food scientists and technologists are adaptable, interdisciplinary, and collaborative practitioners in a field at the forefront of scientific and technological advancements. As the food system has shifted from one centered on family food production on individual farms and food preservation to today's modern system, most people are no longer attached to their food and are unfamiliar with agricultural production and food manufacture aimed at better food quality.
While the world's population continues to grow, the Earth's ability to replenish its resources is deteriorating. As a result, the bioresources essential for food production are depleting, and new techniques for feed the existing and future world population are required. Scientists have devised creative ways in recent decades to reduce food loss and waste, increase food production, discover new ingredients, design and build new food structures, and incorporate digitalization into the food system. In this paper, we present an overview of the circular economy, alternative food production technologies such as cellular agriculture, and new sources of ingredients such as microalgae, insects, and wood-derived fibers. Finally, we discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the food chain briefly. This review was written for a broad audience, covering a wide range of topics and providing insights on the most recent advances in food science and technology, presenting examples from both academic and industrial perspectives in terms of concepts, technologies, and tools that could help the world achieve food security in the next 30 years.
AI in food technology has added a new layer to the food industry manifesting the real world of technology. From the production of food to packaging, the industry’s forefronts various technological equipment to keep up its day-to-day tasks. With powers well beyond any human endeavors, AI is poised to become a critical instrument for not only streamlining the F&B sector but also reshaping human livelihoods by freeing up labor. Manufacturers employ automation and robotics in the food sector to produce and package food. Technology has greatly improved food packaging by extending shelf life and enhancing food safety. As production prices fall, so does food quality. The reality of AI, robotics, drones, and 3D printing in the food sector inspired the topic that this post will go into in depth.
Today's technology, which was originally developed to pick up heavy metal components, is sophisticated enough to pick up delicate items such as cheese, bread loaves, and fruits without hurting them. Food makers may now monitor items and consumer demand and then match output to this need using data analysis. Robotics and AI software development make this possible.
Furthermore, economic barriers should be addressed in order to provide low-income consumers with access to healthier and more sustainable food. However, reducing waste and economic barriers is insufficient to achieve global food security. Food production must increase by 70% to feed the world's population by 2050. Furthermore, diets should shift away from animal products and toward more plant-, insect-, and microalgae-based goods. This transformation is required because animal-based diets are less sustainable in comparison due to their higher demand for natural resources, resulting in more environmental deterioration.
The future of technology and science is expansive as it has so much to develop into. The kick-starting innovations will likely take our human ability to determine, develop, and allocate resources in the appropriate direction. Science and technology, together with better human capital, have been strong drivers of beneficial changes in smallholder system performance and evolution.
