FROM RESEARCH TO ENTERPRISES: MODELS OF SCALE UP IN FOOD SCIENCE

Food companies represent the largest manufacturing sector globally, facing global challenges, such as the increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs), pollution and waste, climate change and population growth. Innovation in products, technologies and services has a pivotal role in maintaining food companies competitive and able to peruse the Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030. Usually, universities drive innovation by generating scientific breakthroughs; however, their outputs are often confined to laboratory scale, resulting in minimal influence on the industrial food system. Therefore, the translation of these scientific outcomes to practical applications (scale-up) is essential for achieving innovation in the food sector. This PhD project therefore validates models of scale-up in the food industry, demonstrating how scientific innovations proposed by research can be effectively translated from the laboratory to industrial practice and validation. The thesis is composed of three chapters, each presenting a case study exploring different models of scale-up and prototypes of food innovative solutions, which could be easily transferred on an industrial scale. Specifically, Chapter I – Innovation in fresh pasta formulation and shelf-life extension, as a strategy to reduce food waste and promote healthier diet; Chapter II – Innovation in traditional foods, to address the challenges of NCDs; Chapter III – Innovation in craft beer production to mitigate food safety concerns. The aim of this first part of the thesis was to validate and demonstrate at industrial level the production of fresh pasta with higher antioxidant activity and longer shelf-life, supporting food companies in efforts to reduce food waste and pollution and promote healthier lifestyle. Therefore, fresh pasta samples were produced at industrial scale, using olive pomace extract (OPE) as such (F-OPE) and in its microencapsulated form (M-OPE), as source of antioxidants and antimicrobial compounds. This activity demonstrated the feasibility of upscaling natural antioxidant and antimicrobial solutions, offering a sustainable strategy in improving total phenolic compounds, antioxidant activity and fresh pasta microbiological quality during storage, reducing food waste and promoting healthier diet. The potential of preventing NCDs through healthier food products was the cornerstone of the second chapter of this thesis. NCDs, representing a global public health challenge, associated with unhealthy diet, rich in saturated fats. Cheese bread (pão de queijo) is a gluten-free traditional Brazilian bread, commonly consumed at multiple times during the day. However, it is produced with oil, cheese and eggs, resulting in a product rich in saturated fatty acids and with a low content of fibre. These findings highlight the need to improve the nutritional profile of this traditional bread. Considering that this product is already processed at an industrial scale, there is a clear necessity to find solutions that can easily be adapted to a large-scale production. Hence, experimental cheese breads with improved nutritional profile were produced on a small scale, substituting cheese with avocado pulp and emulsion-filled gel (EFG), produced with inulin and olive oil. The third chapter of this thesis dealt with food safety, which represents a global public health challenge. The most significant health concerns are related to foodborne intoxication, caused by natural occurring toxins, such as biogenic amines (BAs). This research activity began with the investigation of BAs in beers produced in Italian and Romanian microbreweries, to collect data and identify critical steps in BAs accumulation, laying the groundwork for future scale-up strategies, to enhance the safety of craft beers.