Overview

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Our Common Future; The Brundtland Report (1987); UN International Commission on sustainable development; by Gro-Harlem Brundtland, PM, Norway.

The purpose of the Sustainability in the Food Chain Exploitation Platform is to initiate and exploit research relevant to environmental and economic sustainability of the food chain. This will focus on improving the effective exploitation of food-chain residues and co-products by developing a greater understanding of how to disassemble plant structures.

Aims

to develop combination approaches (biochemical, chemical and physical) for selectively extracting and modifying cell-wall and intracellular components;

to exploit higher value components as functional ingredients including nutritionally- and pharmacologically-functional biopolymers and oligomers, high-value rheologically-active polymers, and structuring agents;
to evaluate the potential for exploitation of non-food-grade components, including production of biofuels;
to elucidate and exploit the biodegradation of non-food-grade co-products with special reference to the composting process, and the interactions between micro-organisms and plant structure;
to actively engage with all food-chain stakeholders so as to maximize the potential for innovation

Sustainability in the Food Chain Exploitation Platform