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Nowadays, the sustainability of a product, a process, or a system is assessed according to environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Sustainability challenges occur at all stages in the food system, from production through processing, distribution, and retail to consumption and waste disposal. Consequently, the promotion of organic and local food is not the only way, there is another possibility that implies continuing the production hegemony, emphasizing biotechnology and technological panaceas. Increasing research is being focused on developing healthy, quality, and safety food products adapted to consumer's needs and more environmentally friendly processes. Processes consuming energy more efficiently, generating less waste, and emitting less greenhouse effect gases, among other features are more desired. This chapter contains detailed information about some innovations, strategies, and tendencies followed by food system stakeholders to ensure sustainable functional foods production. Some techniques employed in the development of functional foods, such as formulation and blending, cultivation and breeding, microencapsulation, application of edible films and coatings, vacuum impregnation and nutrigenomics, to increase the sustainability of the food system are discussed.

[EN] Food waste is a worldwide concern as it represents a constant threat to the environment and a serious operational problem for the food industry. The by-products of fruits and vegetables being a valuable source of bioactive compounds have the potential to be reused and reintroduced in the agri-food chain. This circular approach contributes to a sustainable production system. In this context, a collaborative project with the primary sector for the integral valorization of the waste generated in the fresh-processing vegetable lines of an agricultural cooperative is currently being developed, particularly focused on cabbage, carrot, celery, and leek. The objective of this project is to transform vegetable wastes into functional powdered ingredients and be able to use them in food formulations in order to improve the nutritional profile of foods, contributing to the development of sustainable healthy diets. Through an exhaustive bibliographic review, this research studies the influence of pretreatments, drying and in vitro digestion on the bioactive compounds of vegetable residues, with the aim of identifying the appropriate production parameters to achieve an adequate functional and physicochemical profile of the final powders., This research and APC were funded by Generalitat Valenciana under the Rural Development Program 2014-2020 (Ayudas para la cooperacion en el marco del Programa de Desarrollo rural de la Comunitat Valenciana 2014-2020. Experiencias de transformacion agroalimentaria innovadoras, especialmente vinculadas a figuras de calidad diferenciada y produccion ecologica) and the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, fisheries and food, under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. Grant number AGCOOP_D/2018/025.

Interest in high homogenization pressure technology has grown over the years. It is a green technology with low energy consumption that does not generate high CO2 emissions or polluting effluents. Its main food applications derive from its effect on particle size, causing a more homogeneous distribution of fluid elements (particles, globules, droplets, aggregates, etc.) and favoring the release of intracellular components, and from its effect on the structure and configuration of chemical components such as polyphenols and macromolecules such as carbohydrates (fibers) and proteins (also microorganisms and enzymes). The challenges of the 21st century are leading the processed food industry towards the creation of food of high nutritional quality and the use of waste to obtain ingredients with specific properties. For this purpose, soft and nonthermal technologies such as high pressure homogenization have huge potential. The objective of this work is to review how the need to combine safety, functionality and sustainability in the food industry has conditioned the application of high-pressure homogenization technology in the last decade., This research and APC were funded by Generalitat Valenciana, Project AICO/2017/’049

In an increasingly globalized world, technological development has spread and is unstoppable. However, this has not meant an increase in human well-being worldwide. Globalization of technologies faces many interlinked challenges, which jeopardize the sustainability of the food system. From high mechanization and intensive farming production systems, to information and communication technologies and genetic engineering or biotechnology, this chapter gives an overview on how technological development has invaded the different links of the food system, raising pros and cons. The aim is to understand the relative costs and benefits of technologies globalization in the food system, to pave the way for alleviating problems while sustaining the wider payoffs and developing strategies toward the sustainability.

Nowadays the sustainability of a product, a process, or a system is assessed according to three dimensions: environmental, social, and economic. Sustainability challenges occur at all stages in the food system from production through processing, distribution, and retailing to consumption and waste disposal. Consequently, the promotion of organic and local foods is not the only way; there is another possibility that may foster continuing the production hegemony, emphasizing biotechnology and technological panaceas. Increasing research is being focused on the development of healthy, quality, and safe food products adapted to consumers’ needs and more environmentally friendly processes, that is, processes consuming energy more efficiently, generating less waste, and emitting less greenhouse-effect gases, among other features. This chapter contains detailed information about some measures taken by the food industry to ensure the supply of essential nutrients to as many individuals as possible assuring global sustainability. More specifically, the contributions of some techniques employed in the development of functional foods, such as formulation and blending, cultivation and breeding, microencapsulation, edible films and coatings application, vacuum impregnation and nutrigenomics, to increase the sustainability of the feeding process, are discussed.

In the meat industry there are some processes like drying or storage of salted meat products in which the knowledge of water sorption phenomena in salted proteins could be very useful. The sorption and desorption of most salted products is a singular process with three differentiated steps: a w a w = 0.75 and a w > 0.75. SAFES methodology allows the analysis of different elements in a system: the components, phases and states of aggregation in the food during the process to understand the process stages with a suitable level of complexity. It also analyzes the transport functions, chemical reactions and the phenomena occurring during the processing of the product. The aim of this paper is to analyze the sorption phenomena of water in salted proteins using the SAFES methodology for the three different steps of the water desorption process. Salted pork meat isotherms at different three different salt concentrations and three various temperatures were analyzed in order to observe differences between them, in terms of mass transport, reactions, etc. With SAFES methodology, differences in the behaviour of the system, depending on the amount of NaCl added to the pork meat were observed. Differences in mass fluxes were found in relation to temperature and NaCl concentration.

SAFES methodology has been specifically designed to describe and analyze foods, operations and processes systematically. It is based on the multicomponent and polyphasic character of foods, requires establishing simplificative hypothesis and it allows us to quantify the changes that the operations and processes cause in food as well as the mechanisms responsible for them, making possible a quality control in the final product. The application of SAFES methodology to dehydration of apple by combined methods requires considering it as a biologic system constituted by cells which assemble in a tissue including intercellular connexions, intercellular spaces and pores. In this system, the phases and components considered should not limit the mechanisms involved in removing water. Five components distributed in five different phases have been considered in the definition of composition matrix of raw material and products after each operation. Experimental data for mass (total, water and solutes) and volume changes after each step and simplified hypothesis concerning water distribution among phases and location of liquid phase have been necessary to apply the SAFES methodology, determining the evolution of composition and volume in each phase (composition matrix and volume vector) and analyzing driving forces and mechanisms involved in the main changes of the product. The application of SAFES methodology to dehydration of apple by combined methods reveals that traditional methods based on the analysis of foods as a continuous and homogeneous system are inadequate to control the changes in the quality properties of the product. Consequently, it is necessary a rigorous analysis directed to establish relations between food properties and physico-chemical changes in the product along the process.

Food quality and safety are the main concerns of consumers and the principal target of the food industry processes. The concept of "food process engineering for product quality" has been arising in the last years with the aim of designing and controlling processes to produce food products with very specific properties of quality and safety, previously defined on the basis of market opportunities analysis. The final properties of food products are the result of the changes in raw material as a consequence of process conditions. In the case of colloidal or cellular foods, these changes may be observed as differences in quality factors as food composition, nutritional facts, taste and flavour, aspect, shape and size, colour, texture, etc. These changes in food properties may be explained because physical and chemical phenomena produced in line with the process progression, as structure deformations, chemical or enzymatic reactions, phase transitions, etc. The models currently used in food process engineering simplify too much both the food system description and the mechanisms and rate equations of changes. The food system is supposed to be homogeneous and continuous. In this way, thermodynamic and kinetic equations deduced for ideal gas or liquids, in conditions close to equilibrium are applied to cellular solid foods, in conditions far away from the equilibrium. It is necessary to develop advanced concepts and methodologies in food process engineering. The new models for food and processes development must incorporate information about all these aspects (thermodynamic, structural, chemist and biochemist, and even mechanics). Only in this way they would be able to calculate and predict the real changes in the whole quality of food product in line with the process progression. The SAFES methodology (systematic approach to food engineering systems) recognizes the complexity of food system and allows coordinating the information about food structure, composition, quality, thermodynamic, etc. in adequate tools to develop real food and processes models. "In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of reality" [Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., & Rosen, N., (1935). Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review, 47, pp. 777-780].

The application of a vacuum pulse for a specified time before long term osmotic dehydration has been proposed to obtain candied fruits at mild temperatures, thus maintaining the characteristic attributes of fresh fruits. Information about main changes involved in apple candying by long term pulsed vacuum osmotic dehydration is missed by applying traditional methods of modelling foods and processes. A new systematic approach to food engineering systems (SAFES) methodology has been recently developed and applied to predict quality and safety attributes from compositional and volumetric changes taking part throughout food processing. Identification and quantification of main components, phases and aggregation states at different stages of changes in which the process can be divided into would be required. Apart from experimental data and data found in references, several hypotheses related to water and soluble solids flow were also formulated for this purpose. The application of SAFES methodology to the apple candying process highlights the usefulness of this tool in making evident that different mechanisms are involved in the process in a coupled way. Indeed, not only osmotic, but also pseudo-difusional and hydrodynamic mechanisms were responsible for compositional and volumetric changes occurring during apple candying to a different extend, depending on the concrete stage of the process. As a result, it should be necessary to analyse the process in different steps in order to avoid a confused knowledge of it.

Background The study areas in food process and products have evolved mainly from safety to other topics such as quality, environment and health. The improvement of food products is now directed towards ensuring nutritional and specific functional benefits. The processes are directed to ensure the quality and safety of environmentally friendly food products produced optimizing the use of resources, minimally affecting or even enhancing their nutritional and beneficial characteristics. Scope and approach The effect of HPH, VI and DT on bioactive compounds have been reviewed, focusing on the structure changes produced and its relationship on the product functionality, as well as on the parameters and the strategies used to quantify and increase the achieved functionality. Key findings and conclusions Applying HPH leads to structural changes that improve the bioavailability of bioactive compounds. The VI operation allows the incorporation of bioactive compounds into natural structures, taking advantage of both the protective effect of these ones and the synergistic effect of certain compounds. The negative effects related to the application of extreme temperatures in DT operations can be minimized by incorporating ingredients that protect structural elements or create protective structures. Management of food processes in an adequate way can contribute clearly to maintain and even increase the functionality of the products in which they are applied. The knowledge of the relations structure–properties–process is a key element necessary to achieve this objective.

The ability to provide quality juices that contain proper vitamins and nutritional components strongly depends on the processes fruits undergo during the various stages of industrial manufacturing. New technologies have been developed to help ensure the production of quality juices without neglecting safety. Covering both new approaches to traditio

Health benefits are one of the specific issues that will greatly influence the food industry in the next few years. Functional foods are products that may provide a health benefit beyond the traditional content of nutrients, or through other added physiologically active components (PAC). Fruits and vegetables are increasingly being consumed because of their appreciated nutritional and fresh properties. The enrichment of these products with minerals, vitamins or other PAC can be a good choice to develop functional foods. Vacuum impregnation (VI) allows to introduce controlled quantities of a solution in the porous structure of fruit and vegetable (matrix). This solution can contain PAC, a w or pH depressors, antimicrobials, etc., in order to formulate functional, stable, fresh-like products. The feasibility of VI for a great quantity of fruits and vegetables is discussed by means of analysing their response to VI. Porosity and VI effectiveness of impregnated products were observed by Cryo-SEM. A model to determine the concentration level of PAC in the impregnating solution was established in order to formulate functional foods with different calcium and iron salts which could represent a determined percentage of the recommended daily intake of these minerals.

[EN] The aim of this work is to make an overview on the emerging technologies and traditionally used to develop functional foods. In this way, we classified the technologies used in three main groups and analyzed the research tendency since the year 2000 until now. Thus, while traditional techniques are the most commonly used for development of functional foods, from years 2000 until 2010 the techniques aimed towards personalized nutrition have grown greatly., The authors acknowledge the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci on for its contribution throughout the projects AGL2009-09905 and PET2008_0015.

Microbial contamination during extraction is an important control point in the production of sugar. It is associated with significant losses of sugar, increased production of molasses and, ultimately, a decline in the quality of juice extraction.The results of the study show that the application of a new natural disinfectant (BetaStab¿) for the extraction of sugar (sucrose) from sugar beet ensures acceptable results, as well as the application of formalin. The best solution for reducing microbial contamination in the extraction process must take into account the possibility that microorganisms develop resistance to disinfectants, so that rotation should be considered during all campaign. It has been demonstrated the usefulness of e-SAFES¿ tool for the detection of changes associated with the application of disinfectants in the manufacturing process. The simplicity of the interface with the user is an advantage in its application as a tool of control., The authors would like to acknowledge to the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain) for providing the financial support of the project AGL 2009-09905