Suchergebnisse

There is considerable demand for process design data on all aspects of food chilling, especially for unwrapped products. This is a result of strict product temperature legislation together with economic requirements to maximise throughput, minimise weight loss and operate refrigeration systems in the most efficient manner. Recent years have seen an increase in customer demand for fresh convenience food, which has caused a major increase in the volume of sales of unwrapped products. Surface drying has been identified as the main reason for commercial loss from unwrapped chilled food in display cabinets. Surface drying increases weight loss and leads to colour changes that are undesirable. This paper reports on work aimed at determining the mass transfer coefficients for some of the most common fillings used in unwrapped sandwiches under the environmental boundary conditions that exist in a display cabinet, and to evaluate their display shelf life and dehydration rate. It was observed that changes in relative humidity along with the air velocity have a substantial effect on drying rate. The measured drying rates were used to derive the average mass transfer coefficients, which are presented in the form of empirical equations that can be used in the selection of appropriate display cabinet environmental conditions to prolong shelf life and reduce wastage.

Data Availability: All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. ; Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. The wide adoption of heat recovery technologies in industry is hampered by specific "barriers" related to both technical and non-technical issues. This paper attempts to determine these barriers and make recommendations on how to address them. First, a literature review of related material is presented. Among numerous barriers, the main ones identified are (i) lack of information, (ii) lack of technology knowledge, (iii) technology risks, (iv) high initial and running and maintenance costs, (v) lack of financial support and lack of governmental incentives, (vi) size and available space limitations, (vii) lack of available infrastructure, (viii) production constraints and risk of production disruptions, (x) risk of the system negative impact on the company operations, and (xi) policy and regulations restrictions. Then, based on the above, a structured questionnaire on barriers to the adoption of waste heat recovery (WHR) technologies was prepared and issued to a number of industries throughout the European Union. Upon analyzing the questionnaire, an assessment of the importance and negative impact of each of the above-mentioned barriers is made. Subsequently, strategies and recommendations on how to overcome the barriers is reported. These recommendations are hoped to be adopted as far as possible in the packaging, installation, commissioning, and demonstration of new and old WHR technologies. ; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant agreement No. 680599.

The rise of food security up international political, societal and academic agendas has led to increasing interest in novel means of improving primary food production and reducing waste. There are however, also many 'post-farm gate' activities that are critical to food security, including processing, packaging, distributing, retailing, cooking and consuming. These activities all affect a range of important food security elements, notably availability, affordability and other aspects of access, nutrition and safety. Addressing the challenge of universal food security, in the context of a number of other policy goals (e.g. social, economic and environmental sustainability), is of keen interest to a range of UK stakeholders but requires an up-to-date evidence base and continuous innovation. An exercise was therefore conducted, under the auspices of the UK Global Food Security Programme, to identify priority research questions with a focus on the UK food system (though the outcomes may be broadly applicable to other developed nations). Emphasis was placed on incorporating a wide range of perspectives ('world views') from different stakeholder groups: policy, private sector, non-governmental organisations, advocacy groups and academia. A total of 456 individuals submitted 820 questions from which 100 were selected by a process of online voting and a three-stage workshop voting exercise. These 100 final questions were sorted into 10 themes and the 'top' question for each theme identified by a further voting exercise. This step also allowed four different stakeholder groups to select the top 7-8 questions from their perspectives. Results of these voting exercises are presented. It is clear from the wide range of questions prioritised in this exercise that the different stakeholder groups identified specific research needs on a range of post-farm gate activities and food security outcomes. Evidence needs related to food affordability, nutrition and food safety (all key elements of food security) featured highly in the exercise. While there were some questions relating to climate impacts on production, other important topics for food security (e.g. trade, transport, preference and cultural needs) were not viewed as strongly by the participants. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and International Society for Plant Pathology.