The overall objective of this trans-national, inter-sectorial Integrated Project is to formulate strategic solutions for technical and basic research hurdles in order to develop and successfully demonstrate novel processing schemes. The exploitation of potentially unique novel processing characteristics will improve quality, facilitate (incremental) innovation and further increase the added value of the EU food sector through:
- substantially extending shelf-life [without compromising safety] of, especially, fresh-like convenience foods of plant origin. This is quite often the limiting factor in maintaining the shelf-life of prepared whole meals. Solving this problem will help to maintain the value (quality and export) of regional recipes;
- responding to the demands of consumers for food with fresh characteristics similar to those of the raw material (taste, aroma, texture, healthy ingredients);
- responding to the demands of consumers for foods that contribute to individual health and wellbeing. Such foods will help to lower the levels of diet-related disease and reduce associated health and social costs across the European Union;
- enhancing eco-friendly innovative processing,
as a direct
consequence of reducing:
- current wastage of fresh produce via extended shelf-life,
- energy inputs, via low-temperature and low-energy processing,
- usage of water and chemicals, via applications of new hygiene approaches, and
- migration problems and packaging materials; via e.g. in-pack processing (thereby avoiding need for repackaging).