With the introduction of Industry 4.0, and smart factories accordingly, there are new opportunities to implement elements of industry 4.0 in nonthermal processing. Moreover, with application of ...Internet of things (IoT), smart control of the process, big data optimization, as well as sustainable production and monitoring, there is a new era of Internet of nonthermal food processing technologies (IoNTP). Nonthermal technologies include high power ultrasound, pulsed electric fields, high voltage electrical discharge, high pressure processing, UV-LED, pulsed light, e-beam, and advanced thermal food processing techniques include microwave processing, ohmic heating and high-pressure homogenization. The aim of this review was to bring in front necessity to evaluate possibilities of implementing smart sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, additive technologies with nonthermal technologies, with the possibility to create smart factories together with strong emphasis on sustainability. This paper brings an overview on digitalization, IoT, additive technologies (3D printing), cloud data storage and smart sensors including two SWOT analysis associated with IoNTPs and sustainability. It is of high importance to perform life cycle assessment (LCA), to quantify (En)—environmental dimension; (So)—social dimension and (Ec)—economic dimension. SWOT analysis showed: potential for energy saving during food processing; optimized overall environmental performance; lower manufacturing cost; development of eco-friendly products; higher level of health and safety during food processing and better work condition for workers. Nonthermal and advanced thermal technologies can be applied also as sustainable techniques working in line with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030 issued by United Nations (UN).
Castration of male piglets is a common practice to avoid boar taint but is being questioned. The present work has an exploratory character and aims to investigate the beliefs and attitudes of Eastern ...European consumers regarding boar taint, surgical castration immunocastration and perception of meat from castrated pigs and to find out possible segments of consumers regarding these attitudes and beliefs. For this purpose, a consumer study was carried out involving 5508 consumers from 13 Eastern European countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, North Macedonia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine). The questionnaire included statements related to beliefs about castration and perception of meat from castrated pigs, attitudes towards meat from castrated pigs. Results show that in general beliefs and attitudes of the consumers are not defined, probably because of the lack of knowledge (information was not provided to the consumers) towards these issues. Three different clusters of consumers were obtained with different beliefs towards castration.
•Beliefs and attitudes towards castration in Eastern Europe were explored.•Low knowledge of castration might explain lack of definition of beliefs/attitudes.•47% of consumers were classified as “against castration”.•31% of consumers were classified as “indifferent towards castration”.•22% of consumers were classified as “pro-castration”.
The main aim of this study was to analyze hygiene practices in small-scale dairy plants (SSDPs) in Serbia. A total of 60 plants were included in the research. A survey questionnaire used for SSDPs ...was designed to obtain the main information about hygiene practices they perform, as well as the data about the SSDPs, their production portfolio, and improvement plans. For the purpose of this study, a good hygiene practice score (GHPS) was calculated showing that the average score is 75%, spanning from 71.4% to 80.3% depending on the type of dairy plant. This study showed that the biggest challenges for small-scale dairy plants are associated with adequate labeling and external analysis of their dairy products, followed by record keeping and use of appropriate food contact materials. As expected, registered and approved SSDPs had higher GHPS scores and more information on their labels than those still in the approval or registration process. This study confirms the need for supporting this type of dairy producer to improve two main pillars of their business—the infrastructure for where they produce dairy products and awareness/knowledge of food safety legislative requirements. At the same time, approved processors are significantly underutilizing their processing capacity, which implies the need for both policy change consideration and educational initiatives. The policy changes should aim to align regulations with small-scale dairy processing realities.
Many aspects linked to personal characteristics, society and culture constitute some of the motivators that drive food choice. The aim of this work was to determine in what extent the eating ...behaviors of individuals are shaped by six different types of determinants, namely: health, emotions, price and availability, society and culture, environment and politics, and marketing and commercials. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study, involving a non-probabilistic sample of 11,960 participants from 16 countries. The objective of this work was to validate the questionnaire, so as to make it suitable for application in different contexts and different countries. For that, six scales were considered for validation by confirmatory factor analysis with structural equation modelling. The obtained results showed that the six individual scales evaluated presented good or very good fitting indices, with saturation in goodness-of-fit index in all cases. The values of chi-square ratio were 6.921 (for health), 0.987 (environment), 0.610 (emotions) and 0.000 in the remaining cases (convenience, society, marketing). Furthermore, the fit was perfect, with saturation for all indices, in three of the six models (convenience, society and marketing). The results of this wok allowed the validation of the six scales, and the assessing of different types of factors that can influence food choices and eating behaviors, namely in the categories: health, emotions, price and availability, society and culture, environment and politics, and marketing and commercials.
The aim of this exploratory work, because of the existing bias on the size of the sample and some of the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, was to investigate the Eastern European ...consumers’ beliefs and attitudes toward animal welfare, to perform a cross-country segmentation analysis and to observe possible differences with their Western European counterparts. For this purpose, a survey was conducted with 5508 consumers from 13 Eastern European countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, North Macedonia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine) using a questionnaire with nine statements about consumers beliefs regarding animal welfare (aspects of management, ethical issues about animals, and consequences of animal welfare on meat quality and price), one statement about the willingness to pay more for meat produced under better welfare conditions, and four statements regarding attitudes toward animal welfare. Differences between countries were detected for all the statements. Moreover, three clusters of consumers were identified: one with consumers indifferent towards animal welfare; one with consumers concerned about animal welfare, but they believe it is difficult to achieve; and one with consumers concerned about animal welfare, and they believe it is possible to achieve it.
(1) The nutritional quality of strawberry (
Duch) fruits, among others, is largely maintained by the presence of soluble sugars and organic acids. As the primary products of photosynthesis, they are ...energy depots in plants, necessary for the construction of cell constituents, but also serve as precursors of aromatic compounds and signaling molecules. (2) In this study, fruits of 25 strawberry cultivars were qualitatively and quantitatively characterized concerning individual sugars and organic acids by HPLC, FT-ICR-MS, and MS imaging analysis. In addition, the total quality index (TQI), as a novel mathematical model, was used to compare all individual parameters evaluated to obtain a quantitative single score, as an indicator of overall fruit quality. (3) Regardless of a large number of cultivars and monitored parameters that were studded, several cultivars stood out in terms of selected primary metabolites, such as 'Rumba', 'Jeny', and 'Sandra', while the latter had the best TQI score. (4) Intercultivar variations in sugars and organic acids profiles, along with other bioactive compounds, should be considered for selection of promising cultivars with improved naturally occurring nutraceutical traits. Besides the search for a pleasant taste, increased awareness of healthy nutrition resulted in heightening consumer demand for high-quality fruit.
As a foodborne pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes could be commonly found in the food processing facilities, where forms biofilm on various food contact surfaces. Therefore, the control of L. ...monocytogenes biofilm formation is of key importance for improving food safety. The aim of this work was to examine the ability of yellow gentian root and leaf extracts to inhibit biofilm formation of L. monocytogenes strains at commonly used 37 °C and at ambient temperature associated with food processing plants (18 °C), on both polystyrene and stainless steel. Crystal violet staining assay revealed strong potential of the extracts to prevent biofilm formation on polystyrene at 37 °C (up to 90% inhibition), and on both surfaces at 18 °C (up to 78.1% and 62.9% on polystyrene and stainless steel, respectively). Antibiofilm effect could be ascribed to extracts’ ability to reduce the production of exopolysaccharides and to suppress swimming motility. Finally, qRT-PCR demonstrated no activity against quorum sensing, but up-regulation of the genes (flaA, sigB) involved in biofilm formation, most likely as a response to stressful conditions. Results obtained suggest yellow gentian extracts as potent antibiofilm agents, but further analyses are needed to determine the underlie mechanism and to validate the efficiency and safety in commercial environment.
•Yellow gentian extracts have antibiofilm potential against Listeria monocytogenes.•Extracts inhibited biofilm formation on polystyrene and stainless steel at 18 °C.•Extracellular polysaccharides production decreased after extracts' treatment.•Extracts reduced the flagella-mediated motility.•Expression of biofilm related genes was modulated after extracts' treatment.
This work intended to explore some motivations that influence people’s eating habits towards sustainability. This was an observational, cross-sectional study, carried out by questionnaire survey on a ...non-probabilistic sample of 10,067 participants from 13 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania and United States). Results indicated that people prefer fresh local foods from the season, being important because it allows transportation and storage to be reduced, which in many cases implies refrigeration systems and consequent energy expenditure. Although people avoid food waste at home, the awareness for the waste at restaurants still needs to be improved. Consumers seem to prefer foods that have been produced and packed in sustainable ways but still give importance to the package—understandable for food products. The results also indicated significant differences in the food choice motivations between groups for all sociodemographic variables tested (age, sex, marital status, education, professional area, living environment and country), but the association was high only for variable country. Additionally, a tree classification analysis allowed to identify the relative importance of the influential variables on the sustainable food choices, with country being the most important, followed by age and sex. Additionally, discriminant function analysis allowed establishing a model for the relation between country and six variables accounting for preservation of biodiversity, respect for life, save natural resources, save energy, reduce industrial pollution and minimal packaging. Although with some limitations, this study brings valuable insight into some aspects linked with sustainable food choices on a number of countries and how people shape their food choices according to some sustainability issues.
This study aimed at investigating the influence of some sociodemographic factors on the eating motivations. A longitudinal study was carried conducted with 11960 participants from 16 countries. Data ...analysis included t-test for independent samples or ANOVA, and neural network models were also created, to relate the input and output variables. Results showed that factors like age, marital status, country, living environment, level of education or professional area significantly influenced all of the studied types of eating motivations. Neural networks modelling indicated variability in the food choices, but identifying some trends, for example the strongest positive factor determining health motivations was age, while for emotional motivations was living environment, and for economic and availability motivations was gender. On the other hand, country revealed a high positive influence for the social and cultural as well as for environmental and political and also for marketing and commercial motivations.
The objective was to develop and validate an instrument that measures different determinants of people's food choices and simultaneously accounts for a variety of factors: health, emotions, price and ...availability, society and culture, environment and politics, and marketing and advertising.
This is a cross-sectional study focusing on food choice determinants. It was carried out in 16 countries in 2017 and 2018. This study included 11,960 volunteer adult participants from different countries. The data was validated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).
Validation using CFA with SEM revealed that multi-factor modelling produced first- and second-order models that could be used to define the EATMOT scale, the first presenting better fitting indices, with the goodness-of-fit and comparative-fit indices very close to 1, as well as root-mean-square-error-of-approximation, root-mean-square-residual and standardised-root-mean-square-residual at practically zero.
The validated EATMOT scale guarantees confidence in the information obtained through this instrument, and can be used in future studies to better understand food choice determinants in different geographical areas and help plan strategies to improve healthy eating patterns and diminish the burden of non-communicable diseases.
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