Sustainability in the Food Chain * Sustainability in the Food Chain * Institute of Food Research: Exploitation Platform

About the Healthy Structuring project

  • Project Sponsor: Supported by the EU's Framework 6
  • Project Number: FOOD-CT-2006-023115
  • Project Title: Nutritional and Structural Design of Natural Foods for Health and Vitality

Purpose and significance of the project

HEALTHY STRUCTURING is an EU-funded STREP project, with the objective to improve the nutritional and structural quality of ready to eat fruit and vegetable products (in particular ready-meals containing tomatoes, carrots and broccoli). The research strategy is to select raw materials and agronomy conditions and optimise food manufacturing processes to maintain or enhance the sensory perception and preserve the nutrient profile in the end product.  This will be achieved through studies of how the characteristics of raw materials are influenced by growth and storage conditions, and by identifying processing solutions that preserve the natural qualities of the fruits and vegetables while assuring safety, stability and freshness in terms of structure and texture.

The specific objectives are to:

  1. improve the natural nutrient content in fruit and vegetable for the consumer,
  2. design food textures only using natural raw materials,
  3. preserve the natural nutrient content through milder processing conditions and
  4. ensure microbiological safety under these milder processing conditions.

The project involves new and innovative technologies from plant growth, post-harvest processing, mixing and storage and evaluation of content and biological activity of naturally occurring compounds. The Sustainability of the Food Chain Exploitation Platform is involved in aspects concerning plant cell wall-related changes in texture during processing, in collaboration with IFR Imaging; work on the potential to control nutrient profile and texture through agronomy; and the influence of storage of raw materials on downstream heat processing behaviour. The functionality of plant tissue components (nutrient profiles, structure, polysaccharides, and enzymes) is being investigated in collaboration with the other partners to manufacture and test trial products of fruit and vegetable mixtures from laboratory to an industrial scale and in relation to microbial safety, undertaken within the IFR Microbial Ecology Exploitation Platform.

The Consortium

In addition to the Institute of Food Research, the other contractors involved are: SIK, Gothenburg, Sweden (Co-ordinator), ASP - Berlin, Germany, Chalmers University of Technology - Gothenburg, Sweden, Unilever - The Netherlands, University of Murcia - Spain, Tetra Pak Processing Systems - Sweden and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Belgium.

Project website

The public web site is http://www.sik.se/hstructuring/.

Who to contact for further information:

Professor Keith Waldron
Institute of Food Research
Norwich Research Park
Colney
Norwich
NR4 7UA
UK
Phone: +44 (0) 1603 255000
Fax: +44 (0) 1603 507723

E-mail: keith.waldron@ifr.ac.uk

 

Sustainability in the Food Chain Exploitation Platform Copyright Institute of Food Research Institute of Food Research