Chapter IV

Sustainable food processing

More resource efficiency and better
effectivity in food production

Contents

IV.1 Food processing .................................................................................................................... 1

IV.2 Sustainability in food processing .......................................................................................... 2
IV.3 Efficiency in production: producing in the right way ........................................................... 4
IV.3.1 Case 1: Corn milling ...................................................................................................... 5
IV.3.2 Case 2: Wheat fractionation and starch hydrolysis...................................................... 6
IV.3.3 Case 3: Potato processing .......................................................................................... 10
IV.3.4 Case 4: Sugar refining ................................................................................................. 11
IV.3.5 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 13
IV.4 Effectiveness in production: producing the right things .................................................... 13
IV.4.1 Case 1: Dairy and whey refining ................................................................................. 13
IV.4.2 Case 2: Potato refining ............................................................................................... 14
IV.4.3 Case 3: Protein transition ........................................................................................... 16
IV.4.4 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 20
IV.5 Conclusions on Process Intensification .............................................................................. 21

IV.1 Food processing

Food processing is the conversion of harvested crops or slaughtered animals into products that
can be prepared and eaten by humans. While some foods can be eaten directly without any
processing (fruits, some roots), many products need some kind of preparation. In most areas of
the world there is a period in the year in which nature is plentiful, while in other times it does not
provide any food. Therefore humanity has developed ways to store food, such that it can be eaten,
for example in the winter, or in periods of failed harvests. However, these dried, salted or frozen
foods generally need to be processed once more, to make them edible again (often rendering food
inedible to spoilage organisms also makes it inedible for humans). They have to be re-hydrated,
washed, heated, and used in dishes that make them palatable.
An additional motivation for processing is that not all foods are digestible in their native state for
humans. For example, the starch in raw wheat or corn cannot be easily digested by us, while in
some cases toxic components (also called anti-nutritional factors) are present that block our
digestive system. Processing these foods, by heating, cooking, baking bread or similar treatments,

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physically modifies the starch into a form that can be digested well, and may denature of degrade
the anti-nutritional factors. Many vegetables hardly have any nutritional value without having
been cooked, as this opens up their strong, impermeable cell walls, and makes their contents
accessible for our digestive fluids.
A third motivation for processing in our modern society is that not everyone can or wants to spend
the full time necessary to produce a good meal from the raw ingredients. The development of
‘convenience foods’, i.e., foods that have been processed such that the consumer does not need
to spend much time in the kitchen, has been important in the emancipation movement, and
therefore in the development of the industrial world1.
In general, processing comprises some preliminary treatment done at the farm (before
transportation), and processing after transportation to a centralised factory. Some products may
be ready at this stage, and are transported, may be chilled, stored and sold by groceries: fruit,
vegetables, potatoes, rice, and milk. Other products merely act as ingredients in other products:
sugar, wheat flour, tomato paste, non-roasted coffee beans, cocoa nibs and butter, soybeans, malt.
They are therefore transported to other factories, and are converted into so-called processed
foods. One can think here of ice cream (produced from milk powder, sugar and a few other
components), soft drinks (produced from glucose or fructose syrup and concentrates), beer
(produced from malt, which in its turn is produced from barley), bread (wheat flour and yeast),
pasta sauce (from mashed tomatoes that have been concentrated and spices), but also cheese,
salami, Serrano ham, etcetera.
The food processing sector is essential in providing us all with the foods that we want, any time of
the year. It is the most important industry in the EU, with a turnover of €900 billion by about 310
000 companies, and provides jobs for more than 4 million people2.

IV.2 Sustainability in food processing

Generally, sustainability has not been an issue in the food industry until recently. Where before
1950 society was mostly active in providing sufficient food to the population, from 1950 the
average prosperity started to rise strongly, while sufficient food became available. The main
motivator now was food safety and preservation: how could the foods be offered such that they
did not spoil? This was the time that refrigerators were introduced, that canning of all kinds of
products was important, and that many food ingredients were refined to be as pure as possible
(sugar, white flour for making white bread). From about 1970 an additional motivator became
apparent due to the increased affluence of the population. Choice, convenience and taste became
important. People were not satisfied anymore with canned vegetables or meat, and the demand
for fresh products became stronger. Awareness grew that more processing was not always better:
whole wheat bread became popular. On the other hand, ready-made meals, and partially prepared
foods such as pre-cooked rice were developed which saved the consumer a lot of time. In the 1970
also the first warning was emitted by the Club of Rome about the finite nature of the resources

1
It is however not true that convenience foods are only of our times. In the past, people often were
travelling, and even in prehistoric times, people needed to have quick food when hunting for several
days.
2
Interestingly, if we would not have a food processing industry, but would prepare all our foods at
home from raw materials, our energy and water expenditure would magnify to humungous amounts.
Processing foods on large scales enables us to re-use heat and water many times, and to generate it in
efficient ways. At home we have to use natural gas or even electricity for heating and we can only use
it once. Similarly, leftovers can be used for other products in a factory, while they most of it may be
thrown away at home.

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that form the basis of our industrial society. Even though their report ‘Limits of Growth’ created a
lot of turbulence, the net effect was small, as prices of oil, coal and ores remained relatively low.
From about 1990, people started to realise that health cannot be taken for granted. It was found
that many diseases (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, some forms of cancer) have a close relation
to the type of diet that one follows. A trend towards healthier foods emerged, all the way towards
the modern so-called functional foods, which usually have an added component that is supposed
to have a specific (beneficial) effect on our health. In 2006 the prices of staple foods suddenly
started to rise, while at the same time (fossil) fuel prices went up. There was much turmoil around
the realisation that human activities produce enormous quantities of greenhouse gases, and the
Earth therefore warms up slowly. In an attempt to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels (which
are generally found in instable regions in the world) the US government then decided to establish
an industry that converts part of their corn harvest into ethanol by fermentation. Similar initiatives
were taken elsewhere, albeit not at the same scale. In the EU, gasoline is supplemented with a
small amount of bioethanol, and diesel fuel has to contain a few per cent biodiesel, for example.
Only from about 2008, the world has realised that something needs to change. First of all, the
industry was confronted with sudden and drastic increases in prices of food commodities and
energy. These price increases were caused partly by the use of agricultural products for energy
and fuel, partly due to the fact that East Asia developed its economy at an enormous rate and
needed the resources to sustain that, and partly due to large-scale speculation. There was a
general worry that the shortage on raw material and energy would be permanent. Even though
the prices have now stabilised, they are till on a higher level. The structural causes are still there:
many regions in the world are still developing rapidly, and need resources to run their factories,
provide their people with houses and cars and enable the people to run their cars, central heaters
and air conditioners.
Now we see a new, even larger threat: global warming. All human activities combined emit a lot
of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, NOx, O3 and others), and this causes the planet to heat up. This has
triggered an auto-accelerated process where the heating up melt part of the ice caps, which reduce
the albedo (reflectance) of the Earth, and release of even more greenhouse gases from previously
frozen permafrost tundra, leading to even stronger warming. This already causes droughts and
floods, storms and landslides, which have already taken a toll on global harvests. Therefore, the
expectation is that in the coming decades the agricultural productivity will be under stress; even
as the world human population will continue to rise towards 9 to 10 billion.
This realisation has led to a number of international agreements, such as the Paris Agreement in
2015 and ratified (with the exception of a few important countries) in 2018, which compels the
members to reduce their greenhouse emissions such as to remain below a 2℃ increase in global
average temperature. This has been translated in a strong reduction of the use of fossil fuels, and
much better use of feedstock. The government of The Netherlands has translated the guidelines
into a target of reducing the use of greenhouse gas emissions by 49% in 2030, and 90% in 2050.
All industry sectors are expected to contribute to this. The agro-food sector is one of these sectors.
Also the general public is now well aware of the need for reduction in fossil fuels and greenhouse
gas emissions. This means that for the first time, sustainability is a marketing issue, also for food
products. It is clear that this has attracted the attention of major players in the food industry. As
an example, Unilever launched its Sustainable Living plan in 2010, which specifies amongst others,
that they will half their environmental impact while growing their business. This includes the
emission of greenhouse gases, the use of water, more sustainable sources (i.e., not only focusing
on their own operations) and reducing the use of packaging and the production of waste.
To become more sustainable, the food industry has to work along several paths. Of course they
will continue to improve the efficiency of their current processes, and while this will continue to
deliver small improvements, this will not bring the emission anywhere near the large reductions
that have been agreed. Therefore they have to take radical steps. These are aimed at processes
that are inherently more efficient, but also at the use of raw materials that are more efficient to

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produce. And creating more product out of the same raw material obviously will reduce the
emissions per kg product as well.
In the Sustainable Food Initiative, a collective of the Dutch (-based international) food industry,
the objectives have been formulated as ‘develop the 4th generation food processing technology
enabling a decrease in footprint (Water, GHG) of 50 % in 2025 whilst preserving the inherent
goodness of agricultural raw materials; enable us to reduce waste by 50 % in 2025, enable better
than 95% use of agricultural raw materials and ensure full circularity of packaging materials by
2025.’ In addition, it commits that it should ‘be able to handle 90 % of available raw materials and
raw materials qualities in 2025.’
It is clear that the food industry can only make this transition, by combining this with attention to
the other two big societal challenges it faces: the global epidemic of overweight, and the loss of
trust that consumers have in processed foods.

IV.3 Efficiency in production: producing in the right way

Many processes in the food industry use a lot of water and energy. In chapter 1 we discussed that
the average process in the food industry consumes a lot of water (1 – 60 liter per kg product) and
energy (1 – 25 MJ/kg product), and often produces a lot of solid wastes as well (0.1 – 0.7 kg/kg
product).
Many processes use water as carrier. As (random) example, in the preparation of potato chips or
French fries from potatoes, a lot of water is used: first for washing the potatoes, then for peeling,
and then the in the slicing/cutting process water is used once more. The same is true even stronger
if you would prepare these products in your kitchen at home: you would wash the potatoes, put
them in water after peeling, and immerse them again in water after slicing, to remove the released
starch which would hinder the frying process. It is not a special feature of this process: in general
a lot of water is used in food processing: for cleaning, rinsing, suspending, separating and mixing.
Some of the water can be removed by draining, but part of it has to be removed by evaporation.
The main (but not sole) role of the deep frying of potato chips or French fries is the evaporation of
water: a potato chip is basically a desiccated, thin slice of potato. Similarly, the water in milk has
to be evaporated to separate it from the dissolved components. Evaporation of water costs a lot
of energy. Even in modern processes, one needs typically about 4.8 MJ/kg water in a drying process,
and about 2.7 MJ/kg water in a concentration process. In older processes (which are often still
used in the industry) the energy consumption can be manifold.
Nowadays there is a tendency to recycle water, instead of using fresh water and discarding waste
water: waste water has to be treated and that is expensive. In more populated areas, the disposal
of (treated) waste water is severely restricted, due to the limited capacity of the sewage system.
However, water recycling in a food factory is not always possible or allowed. When you recycle
used water, it may contain nutrients for micro-organisms, and this could simulate growth of
pathogenic bacteria. The regulations around recycling of water are therefore quite strict.
Many of the newer developments in processing are therefore aimed at reduction of the total
amount of water used – i.e., to process at far lower water levels that is conventionally used. This
tendency of reducing the volumes and processing more compactly is called process intensification.
We will discuss three examples of this.

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IV.3.1 Case 1: Corn milling

The first example is corn milling. Corn is one of the most important staple foods in the world;
directly consumed (mostly in the Americas), but mostly by its use as cattle feed. In recent years,
the use of corn as raw material for bio-ethanol production has become important as well (once
more in the US).
There are two processes for processing corn. The first one, called wet milling, is the process used
most for processing into food and feed fractions. The corn kernels are first cleaned and washed,
and then soaked for 30 – 50 hours in a solution of sulphur dioxide. This softens the tissues of the
kernel. Soluble component are dissolved in the solution, which is later concentrated and
evaporated until a dry product results, that is sold as condensed corn fermented extractives (CCFE).
The soaked kernels are then milled coarsely, releasing the germ, which is separated, expressed to
remove the oil in the germ, and the rest is dried. The rest of the kernel is screened to remove the
bran (outer layer). We are now left with a slurry of starch and gluten, which is separated with
centrifuges or hydrocyclones: the gluten are lighter than the starch granules. The gluten and starch
are now separately concentrated and dried. The gluten is generally used for feed; the starch may
be hydrolysed using enzymes, and converted into sweeteners used in soft drinks, or used directly
in products.
The total amount of energy needed in a corn wet milling plant is about 1.6 MJ/kg. Taking into
account that the generation of the energy (e.g., electricity) is not very efficient, the total amount
of energy spent on processing 1 kg of corn, is 4.8 MJ/kg. More than 90% of this energy is related
in some way to the evaporation of water, drying of products or removing water (see graph).

Figure 1. Energy use in corn wet milling3.

An alternative process, mostly used for non-food purposes (e.g., production of bio-ethanol) is the
dry corn milling process. Here, the corn is cleaned and milled into dry flour. It is then mixed with
water. The slurry is heated for gelatinisation of the starch and enzymes are added to hydrolyse it
into single sugars (glucose), after which the slurry is fermented by yeast into ethanol. The gluten
is not separated but present during the fermentation, and is partly consumed by the yeast. The
concentrated and dried remains after the fermentation is called the Distillers Dried Grain with
Solubles (DDGS). It is mainly used as cattle feed.
While the wet milling process produces good, food quality products, it is quite wasteful in terms
of water and energy usage. The dry milling processes is simple and effective, but very coarse, and

3 C.Galitsky, E. Worrell, M.Ruth, Energy Efficiency Improvement and Cost Saving Opportunities, for the Corn Wet
Milling Industry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, report LBNL-52307

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wastes a very good crop into low-value, low-quality products: bio-ethanol4 and DDGS. Therefore,
researchers from Cargill (one of the largest corn processors in the world) developed the CDCM
(Cryogenic Dry Corn Milling) process5. Here, the corn kernels are cleaned and then soaked in water
for a short time, during which they take up about 20 – 25 wt% water. During soaking, water seeps
in between the bran (pericarp), the germ and the rest of the kernel. The kernels are then frozen.
As you know, water expands when freezing. This effect is strong enough to break rocks when the
water is inside its cracks. It is the same in the corn kernel: the water that freezes in between the
kernel and the bran expands and causes it to separate. A simple mechanical rubbing is then
sufficient to remove the bran and the germ.
The rest of the kernel – mostly starch and gluten – is milled while frozen. At low enough
temperatures, all materials become brittle at some stage. The temperature at which this occurs is
called the glass transition temperature. This transition is different for each material, and for
biomaterials, is dependent on the amount of water present in the material. A brittle material can
be easily milled into a fine powder; a ductile material (above the glass transition temperature) is
just deformed and yields to it. Therefore, if we mill at a moisture content and temperature at which
one of the constituents is brittle, and the other one is not, we may get good separation of the two:
one constituent will fracture and make small particles; the other will stay intact and form larger
particles. These particles can then be separated by for example wind sifting.
Since the only water introduced is with the initial soaking (in which the moisture cont goes from
16 to 25 wt% (or only an addition of 0.397 kg water), the total energy requirement (which generally
is mostly needed for dehydration) is only a fraction that that of the conventional wet milling
process. Interestingly, the quality of the gluten and starch fractions are better compared to the
ones obtained from the conventional process as well. The process has not yet been applied on
commercial scales.

IV.3.2 Case 2: Wheat fractionation and starch hydrolysis

Wheat is of course used for baking bread and cookies and other traditional foods, but it is also
used in large amounts to produce starch and gluten. Starch is a big product for example for
sweeteners in soft drinks, but can also be used as texturiser, carrier of flavours, and as thickener.
Wheat gluten is used as additive in many foods, especially in the bakery industry. Added to wheat
flour it enhances the leavening capacity of the flour, but it is also used as binder in meat products,
and in feed as calf milk replacer or as pet food.
Wheat kernels have a different anatomy from corn kernels: the binding between the various parts
of the kernel is much stronger, and therefore cryogenic grinding does not result in separation. We
have to resort to a wet process. The wheat kernels are first coarsely grinded, after which the bran
and the germ can be separated by screening. The kernels are then milled finer, which produces a
flour. This is then mixed with water, producing a dough. More water is added, until a thin batter
settles that contains most of the gluten, above which an aqueous suspension of the starch granules
is formed. This suspension is then centrifuged to remove the last bits of gluten, filtered and
concentrated.

4 Bio-ethanol is basically a very low value product. Corn growth on the land costs a lot of soil tillage, fertilizer and
other stuff, and the processing needs a lot of energy, especially for the distillation of the ethanol from the
fermentation broth: if the ethanol concentration becomes larger than about 12%, the yeast is inactivated.
Therefore, there has to be a lot of water present (around 80% at the end), which makes it costly to isolate the
ethanol The DDGS is a heavily degraded fraction, which can only be used as additive in cattle feed, for its nitrogen
content.
5 US patent US20020086097; similar work has also been done with cereals and legumes.

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Figure 2: Material, water and energy streams in the current wheat processing system. The thickness of the arrows
indicates the size of the streams. Light blue is water, dark blue is starch, black is gluten, ad red is energy. The same
scale is used as in Figure 4.

Usually, the concentrated suspension is then directly fed towards a hydrolysis unit, which uses
enzymes to hydrolyse the starch into glucose. The gluten is separated, and dried. There is a fraction
that is not well separated, and which contains part of the starch (the so-called B-type starch). This
fraction is about 20 wt% of the total amount of dry weight of the original wheat flour, and has to
be concentrated and can only be used as cattle feed. As with the corn wet milling process, the flour
fractionation process uses a lot of water and needs a lot of energy to dehydrate and dry the
products. In addition it produces streams which may not be so valuable compared to the primary
products (gluten and starch).
So, is there any way in which we can intensify this process as well? A process developed about 10
years ago in Wageningen6 is now commercialised by Cargill. If you prepare a dough from wheat
flour (using about 40% moisture), and then subject this flour to mild shearing, gluten starts to
aggregate. After a few minutes the aggregates become really large, and when using a concentric
shearing device, it starts to accumulate in the centre of the device.

Figure 3: Subjecting a wheat flour to just shear flow in a curvilinear flow field, leads to spontaneous migration of
the gluten towards the centre of the device. The gluten is of high quality (see right hand picture). The separation
takes place at around 60% solids.

The most important aspect is that no dilution with a large amount of water is necessary: since only
about 45 wt% of moisture is added to the dough, less energy is needed to remove the water again.
Thus the amount of energy used in the separation is much less.

6
S.H. Peighambardoust et al. (2008), J. Cereal Sci., 48(2), 327-338; E.E.J. van der Zalm et al., (2009), J. Food Eng.,
95(4), 572-578

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Figure 4: Material, water and

energy streams in the intensified
wheat processing system. The
thickness of the arrows indicates
the size of the streams. Light blue is
water, dark blue is starch, black is
gluten, and red is energy. The same
scale was used as in Figure 2.

This illustrates the typical advantage of process intensification: if you don’t add water, you don’t
need to remove it again, and sometimes processes are quicker and more selective. And if you don’t
produce a waste stream, you have no bother with it. However, it is usually difficult to get it working
in practice. The conventional processes work well, and the producers are used to it. Even when a
new principle offers many advantages, it will cost major investments to build such a new plant,
with the risk that in the end such a new system will not perform as expected. Therefore, one sees
a very slow adoption of these types of processes in industry. One may expect however with the
coming increases in energy and food prices that this will change in the coming years.
The main product for the wheat milling process is starch. This is typically produced by suspending
the starch in water (at about 30 – 40 wt% solids), heating by injection of steam, and adding an
enzyme (amylase), which can hydrolyse the starch into smaller fragments (this is called liquefaction
since it renders the suspension of solid starch into a liquid, clear solution). After some time, the
solution is partly cooled, and other enzymes are added (glucoamylase), which break the fragments
down into glucose or lower molecular weight sugars (this is called saccharification).
Vapors
Vapors
Flash
Cooling
Flash Cooling
(vacuum)
Retention
Loop
Retention
(6-9 min) T: 60°C
Steam Loop
DE: 8-15 Steam
(60-90min)
T: 60°C
DE: 52-95 Evaporator
Starch slurry T: 105-110°C
30-35% D.M.+ JetCooker
-amylase T: 95-100°C Vacuum filter
Gelatinisation Saccharification
60°C; 24-48h

Ion-exchange Carbon
colums column
Saccharification
enzyme Finished
product
80% d.s.

Figure 5: The conventional process for enzymatically hydrolysing starch into glucose syrup (used e.g., in soft drinks).

At the end of the process, the excess water has to be evaporated, which again costs a lot of energy.
The amount of water needed can be represented by the size of arrows, which is done in Figure 6.
Evaporation
Evaporation
Steam injection
IX regeneration

Glucose
Starch Maltodextrins Glucose syrup

Liquefaction Saccharification Purification,

concentration

Figure 6: Diagram of the enzymatic hydrolysis of starch. Once more, the thickness of the arrows indicate the size of
the stream. Water is light blue, green is starch, yellow is the partly hydrolysed starch after liquefaction, and ochre
is glucose syrup7.

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We have shown some time ago that it is possible to do this also in an intensified mode: even at 60
– 75 wt% solids, the liquefaction and saccharification can take place, but one has to be very careful:
the enzymes may be inactivated at too high temperatures or by too intense mixing7. In recent
research it was found one may replace the part where the starch is gelatinised and the part where
the enzymatic hydrolysis takes part, by a single extruder. An extruder is basically a big screw,
rotating in a cylinder. One can push a paste forward in between the screw and the cylinder, and
squeeze it with large force through a small opening at the end. The paste is heated by external
heating and by the friction inside the extruder, and gelatinisation takes place. Concurrent dosing
of enzymes to the mixture will start the enzymatic hydrolysis. Incubation for some time in a holding
vessel will allow for sufficient reaction time.

Vapors
Vapors
Flash
Cooling
Flash Cooling
(vacuum)
Retention
Loop
Retention
(6-9 min) T: 60°C
Steam Loop
DE: 8-15 Steam
(60-90min)
T: 60°C
DE: 52-95 Evaporator
Starch slurry T: 105-110°C
30-35% D.M.+ JetCooker
-amylase T: 95-100°C Vacuum filter
Gelatinisation Saccharification
60°C; 24-48h

Ion-exchange Carbon
colums column
Saccharification
enzyme Finished
product
80% d.s.

Figure 7: The conventional hydrolysis process can be replaced for a major part by a single extruder and a holding
tank. The whole process can then be carried out at much lower water contents; such that no or hardly any water
needs to be evaporated at the end7.

It is possible to run this process at close to stoichiometric conditions (stoichiometric composition

is where all reactants are present in just the amount that is necessary for the reaction – hydrolysis
needs some water), and therefore hardly any water needs to be evaporated at the end. It is clear
that also this process saves water and energy (by redundancy of dehydration). Especially the
combination of the concentrated fractionation of wheat, and the concentrated enzymatic
hydrolysis will yield the highest saving on water and energy and the most optimal process
intensification.

Evaporation
Evaporation
Steam injection
IX regeneration

Starch Maltodextrins Glucose

Liquefaction Saccharification Purification,

concentration

Figure 8: As Figure 6, but now for the intensified process. Hardly any water needs to be added, and therefore the
energy consumption is reduced dramatically (note that in these figures the energy consumption is not shown) 7.

7M. van der Veen, Towards intensification of starch processing, PhD thesis, Wageningen University, 2005; T. Baks,
Process development for gelatinization and enzymatic hydrolysis of starch at high concentrations, PhD thesis,
Wageningen University, 2007

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IV.3.3 Case 3: Potato processing

Not only corn and wheat are processed into their constituents; this is also done with potatoes (in
fact with many more crops; however potatoes are an important crop). Potatoes contain about 78%
water, 18 % starch, about 2.1 % protein, 1 % fat and less than a percent of minerals.
They are of American origin, and were brought to Europe in the 16th century, where they have
played an important role in feeding the population (remember the Potato Eaters by Vincent van
Gogh). Nowadays part of the potatoes is eaten directly, but special cultivars are grown to harvest
and isolate the starch. This starch is of high quality, very pure, and is typically used as a binder in
various dishes. It is also used as adhesive (e.g., for wallpaper, but also on envelopes and postal
stamps), textile finishing and sizing, and in finishing paper. The popular Pringles are made of potato
starch, which is extruded and sliced into thin chips, which are then fried in oil (so Pringles are not
potato chips in the regular meaning).

Figure 9: Cross-section through a potato (left hand drawing). The bulk of the potato consists of cells (right hand
drawing) that contain a lot of starch granules. Of course the cells contain protein to run their metabolic processes.

In the processing of potatoes (e.g., by the Aardappelen VErwerkend BEdrijf, or Avebe), the
potatoes are crushed and mixed with a lot of water. The diluted suspension then contains starch
granules and other components, which have to be separated. This is done with hydrocyclones,
which use the centrifugal force to isolate the starch granules and leave the other components in
the suspension. Since this is not a very efficient process, one needs to do that six times. The starch
is then filtered on a drum filter, which removes most of the water. The last bit is removed by drying.
The water contains a lot of protein and other components. In the past this water was discarded
(e.g., by Avebe in Groningen to the Waddenzee), and later it was first treated before discarding. In
recent years, it was found that the hydrocyclone process could be omitted, by using the drum filter
itself not only as filter but also as washing system. Simply filtering the (more concentrated)
suspension onto the drum filter, and then washing it a number of times with fresh water leads to
just as high a purity, while the total amount of water consumption was a lot less: 50 to 80 % water
could be saved, which also led to a reduction in energy use of 60%. Interestingly, the whole process
also led to less loss of the starch into the waste water.

3 m3/h 3 m3/h
1 mol/m3 diss. 0.67 mol/m3 diss.

Starch
suspension

3 m3/h 3 m3/h
0.33 mol/m3 diss. 0.67 mol/m3 diss.

times 6 for sufficient

purification
3 m3/h
0 mol/m3 diss.
3 m3/h
0.33 mol/m3 diss. Water

Figure 10: Separating starch from mashed potatoes is done with hydrocyclones, in which the starch is suspended
with a lot of water. One needs six such stages to obtain sufficient purity of the starch. A hydrocyclone is basically a
funnel in which the suspension undergoes a swirling flow. The heavier particles swirl outward, and the liquid leaves
at the centre8.

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Figure 11: Left hand diagram: the conventional process used by Avebe for the purification of potato starch. The
multistage hydrocycloning step has been simplified to three stages, in reality there are six. Right hand diagram: the
new process, simpler and saves a lot of water and energy8.

IV.3.4 Case 4: Sugar refining

Sugar is produced, for example from sugar beets, by first washing and peeling, and then slicing
them into small slices (called cossettes). These slices are then immersed in hot water (70 – 80 °C)
for some time. During this time the proteins and other components in the plant cells denature and
degrade, and the cells become permeable. The sugar now leaches out into the water, together
with many other components (which are degraded and oxidised, making them dark brown or even
black). The water, now called juice, is separated from the cossettes (which are expressed to make
them release as much juice as possible). The cossettes, now degraded into a pulp, are very wet
and need to be dried. They are typically used as cattle feed. The juice undergoes an elaborate
series of purification steps.

Figure 12: The sugar production process.

The main part of the process consists of
purification and dehydration steps.

The juice is first mixed with a suspension of calcium hydroxide, which precipitates with multivalent
anions such as sulphate, phosphate, citrate and oxalate and large organic molecules, such as
proteins, saponins and pectins, which aggregate. Next, carbon dioxide is bubbled through the
solution, which precipitates the calcium salts again as calcium carbonate (chalk). The chalk
particles entrap some impurities and absorb others. At the end more carbon dioxide precipitates
more calcium from solution, which is filtered off. At the end, the sugar is crystallized by boiling the
concentrated solution, boiling away the water, which makes the sugar solution supersaturated,
and the sugar crystallises. The interesting thing about this process is that most of the process is
meant to repair the damage that is done at the beginning of the process. The diffusion step

8
Application of Process Intensification in Starch Processing, presentation by M.L.F. Giuseppin, Detmold, 9 April
2003

Page IV-11
FPE 31806 – Sustainability in food chains

(leaching of the cossettes in hot water) degrades and releases many components, which then have
to be removed at some later stage. It would be much more efficient if we could somehow extract
the sugar from the beets, without degrading and extracting other components as well.
This is the aim of a recent development in plant crop processing, called application of pulsed
electric fields (PEF). The cossettes are first made somewhat finer, and then put with some water
into a treatment cell. In the cell, short pulses of an intense electric field are applied. The electric
field causes a polarization of charged ions against the cell membranes, which burst when the force
against them becomes too strong.

Figure 13: The principle of

treatment by pulsed electric
fields9.

The contents of the cell are then released. This happens not at elevated temperatures but at
ambient temperature, which means that most proteins will not be degraded. At the same time,
the cell membranes usually only make small pores, which – when controlled carefully – may only
allow passage of smaller molecules, such as sugar.

Figure 14: A typical treatment cell in which sugar

cossettes are treated with PEF9.

There is a number of effects from this PEF treatment. First, less water is needed, which implies
that less water needs to be evaporated at the end. Second, the amount of contaminants in the
juice may be much less. One has to consider that much of the whole sugar refining has to do with
removal of these contaminants and degradation products, and subsequently removing the water
from the sugar. By making the first release more selective and milder (giving less degradation),
most of the removal steps can be omitted or replaced by simpler processes.
After the conventional release by diffusion, the carbonation, liming and clarification removes all
contaminants and degradation products that were created during the high-temperature diffusion
process. When the high-temperature diffusion is replaced by the milder PEF, these steps may be
omitted and replaced by a few membrane steps (mostly ultrafiltration); the evaporation step after
this will be less resource intensive, since less water is added and thus less water needs to be
removed.

9
E. Vorobiev, N. Lebovka (eds.), Electrotechnologies for Extraction from Food Plants and Biomaterials, Springer
Science and Business Media, 2008

Page IV-12
 Chapter IV – Sustainable Food Processing

Finally, the pulp will not have been degraded by high temperature, which means that more high-
value components may be isolated from this pulp. This will enable further bio-refining of the raw
material into food products. This is discussed in the next section.

IV.3.5 Conclusions
The traditional ways of processing in the food sector were not efficient, involving a lot of water,
and thus requiring energy-intensive concentration and drying, and generally aimed at producing a
very limited set of products.
The last decades have seen a shift towards intensified processes, requiring less water, combining
process steps to reduce loss, and switch towards milder processes, that limit the degradation
taking place during processing. This then makes many separation and clarification steps
superfluous.

IV.4 Effectiveness in production: producing the right things

While making existing processes more efficient (e.g., by intensification) is important and should be
done in all steps from farm to fork, it is also possible to go towards very different ways of
processing. This may not only allow the reduction in water and energy use, but may even allow
much more complete utilisation of the feedstock into high-value products. In some cases one can
even go one step further: why not replace the whole feedstock with one that is much more
sustainable to produce? We will discuss three examples. Of course these examples are not
exhaustive. There are many more examples, and it is certain that many more will follow in the
future.

IV.4.1 Case 1: Dairy and whey refining

Traditional dairies produced the traditional dairy products: sterilized and pasteurized milk, cream,
cheese and butter. The processes to prepare these products have become ever more sophisticated,
enabling more stable and fresher products (e.g., by the use of mild pasteurization technology), and
more efficient.
In the preparation of cheese, whey is produced. Traditionally this was a waste streams, sometimes
used to fed cattle, but often simply discarded to surface waters or sewage. The increasing
concentration of the dairy industry into a few large cooperatives, made this wasting unacceptable,
and at the same time made it possible to use this stream as a raw material. Nowadays, whey has
become a quite valuable raw material, highly sought after, and the products from whey now
represent a major source of income.

Component $/kg $/L milk % of milk Component $/kg $/L milk % of milk
Milk 0.36 Lactoferrin 300 0.030 8
Butter 5.40 0.22 61 Glycomacropeptide 70 0.110 31
Cheese 4.80 0.48 133 α-lactalbumin 60 0.072 20

Dry whey 0.65 0.06 17 β-lactoglobulin 20 0.064 18

Total 211 Immunoglobulin 90 0.063 18

Total 0.340 95

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FPE 31806 – Sustainability in food chains

The tables show that milk is valued at about $ 0.35/L (US values; fluctuate in time), and the value
of whey is at $0.06 per litre milk quite low, even after being dehydrated. This is the reason that
whey traditionally was seen as suitable for cattle feed. However, the whey contains a host of
proteins that have value ranging from $20 to $300 per kg, three orders of magnitude more
expensive that the original milk. This represents a significant value to recover from te milk. So, if
we isolate these proteins, we can in total create $0.34 per litre of milk in value, which is 5.7 times
more than the value of the dry whey, and if we add to this $0.34 the co-production of butter and
cheese, we arrive at a total value of $1.04 per litre milk, instead of $0.36 of the original milk – an
increase of 289%.
This can be augmented by creating value from more ingredients, or even converting some lower-
value ingredients into higher valued ones. An example here is the enzymatic conversion of lactose
into galacto-oligosaccharides, an important ingredient in infant formula and a prebiotic. All in all,
this had led to the creation of true dairy refineries.

Conventional
Cream
dairy Lactoferrin

retentate
Lactoperoxidase
Centri- permeate IEX/chroma
Milk
fugation
MF UF tography α-lactalbumin Figure 15

retentate Caseins
β-lactoglobulin A modern dairy, a true milk
IEX/ED
permeate
Immunoglobulins
refinery, converting milk almost
completely into many high-value
Precipi- Curdling ingredients.
Acid Minerals Lactose
tation
In practice factories may be even
Cheese GMP Enzymes more complex, producing more
Filtr./
Caustic
washing
and other products.
Galacto-oligo-
saccharides
Drum
Caseinates
drying

Thus, modern dairy represents the best developed example of food industries not just improving
the efficiency in their processes, but also towards making better use of the complete raw material
by not focusing on a small set of products (cheese, butter, milk), but on the use of all components
in the raw material for high-value food use.

IV.4.2 Case 2: Potato refining

In potato processing, we see a similar, albeit much more recent trend. In the previous section we
have seen that the isolation of starch from potato has become much more efficient, due to process
intensification. This basically involves strong reduction in the use of water and energy (related to
the use of water by the requirement of dehydration), and if possible avoidance of losses of the raw
material.
However, it does not yet impinge on the fact that only the starch was conventionally considered
to be a product, while the rest was discarded or digested as waste. Of this waste, the largest
amount of the fruit juice that is left after isolation of the starch: about 75% of the potato ends up
as fruit juice. In the EU in 2015, 8 million tons of potato were processed into starch, producing 6
million tons of fruit juice. With a concentration of around 1.8 g/L protein, this means that almost
11 million tons of proteins is wasted every year in the EU alone.
Most valuable amongst these are the proteins, which have very good properties for use in foods.
About 40% of these proteins are patatines, storage proteins, while around 50% are protease
inhibitors, which (apart from some storage function) have a role of defence against pathogens and
infections, since they block digestive enzymes that are injected by infective organisms.

Page IV-14
 Chapter IV – Sustainable Food Processing

Potato juice: 1 – 2 wt% DM %DM

Protein 26.8
Peptides 4.4
AA and amides 9.6
Other N-containing 1.8
Sugars 15.8
Lipids 2.2
Organics acids (chlorogenic, caffeic) 13.2
Other (incl salts) 21.3

One of the modern methods to isolate these proteins is by making use of membrane separation.
Since the proteins are the largest molecules, ultrafiltration (preceded by microfiltration to remove
contaminating particulates) can isolate the proteins by diafiltration and subsequent concentration,
followed by drying. This results in an isolate with good properties; however it is not possible to
separate the proteins from each other, and the ultrafiltration membranes are heavily fouled by
the fruit juice.
Another method is the use of isoelectric precipitation. The patatines have an isoelectric point of
4.6 – 5.2, while the isoelectric points of the protease inhibitors range from 5.6 – 6.5. This close
enough to obtain isoelectric precipitation by adjusting the pH to around 5.5. The IEPs are too close
to get any real separation between the proteins, and in fact exacerbates complexation with
phenolic components in the juice, which tend to form complexes with proteins, and are prone to
enzymatic oxidation.
A third method is by using ion exchange, using so-called expanded bed adsorption. Here, use is
made of synthetic resins that contain charged groups. When these groups are positively charged,
such as quaternary amino groups, then these groups will associate with negatively charged
molecules; hence they are called anion exchange resins. When they contain negatively charged
groups, such as −𝑆𝑂32− and −𝐶𝑂𝑂−, then they will associate with positively charged molecules,
hence called cation exchange resins. Beads of these resins will adsorb proteins whenever they are
exposed to a solution of these, depending on the overall charge of the proteins.

+ + +
+ +
+ Figure 16
+ +
Expanded bed adsorption (EBA) for isolation of
+ - -
+
potato proteins. By adjusting the pH it is
+ - -
+-
-
+
+
possible to isolate but also separate different
-
+ - - + proteins (patatine, protease inhibitors) from the
+ - +
- - + +
-
-
+
+ potato fruit juice.
+ + - - - +
- - + +

+ + + - - - - + After isolation, the proteins are desorbed by

- - + -
- --
+ + +
- - + + + + using a switch in pH, or ionic strength. The
+ + + - -
- + - - + - + + - solution is then neutralized and concentrated,
- and finally dried to yield different protein
+ - +
-
+
-
+
fractions marketed for different purposes.

Depending on the pH of the juice, this can be used to isolate the proteins in the potato fruit juice.
It is even possible to selectively isolate the patatine and the protease inhibitors, by carefully
adjusting the pH. This is done using subsequent anion and cation exchange in expanded beds. Here,
resin particles are lightly fluidized by the feed flow coming from the bottom. This ‘expanded mode’
is used to avoid clogging that would occur in a normal compact bed of resin particles. If the pH is
carefully adjusted, the first column will isolate the anionic proteins, and the second the cationic,
thus separating the patatines from the protease inhibitors. By running at very low temperatures,
it is possible to avoid excessive enzymatic oxidation of the phenolics, which would bind to the
proteins and strongly reduce their value. The isolated proteins have excellent foaming and

Page IV-15
FPE 31806 – Sustainability in food chains

emulsifying properties, are used as gelling agents, and are even considered for use in meat
analogues.
This recovery of proteins from a former waste streams is a good example of the trend towards
‘total use’ of raw materials. Obviously, it forms an important step towards the production of more
food from the same amount of raw materials, which also translates into a strong reduction of
resources per kg of food. It is expected that in the future, more components, such as the smaller
organic acids will also be isolated and marketed as valuable products.

IV.4.3 Case 3: Protein transition

One of the most important macronutrients in our diet is protein. Nowadays, in western countries,
we get the majority of our proteins from animal sources. Meat and dairy products contribute
around 6 % of the economic value but 24 % of the environmental impacts caused by total final
consumption in the EU, based on a life cycle assessment method.10 It is expected that the demand
for meat will grow by 76% in 2050, due to demographic and economic changes, when we do not
change our diets or change the way that we generate our protein food.
We simply cannot produce all that meat, especially when considering the detrimental effects of
global warming over the next decades. It is important to realise that meat production is very
inefficient, requiring more than 5 times as much plant proteins to be converted into eat proteins.

Figure 17
US feed-to-food protein flux into
edible animal products.
63 Mt of feed protein yield edible
animal products containing 4.7
Mt protein, an 8% weighted
mean protein conversion
efficiency.
Source: A Shepon et al., 2016,
Environ, Res. Lett, 11 105002

Even though insects are much more efficient meat producers than warm-blooded animals, they
are still an extra step in the food chain. The ultimate way to produce foods is directly from those
organisms that capture the sunlight and nutrients into their tissues. Replacement of meat by plant
based protein products is therefore potentially the best option.
If we want to make protein foods from plants, we face two major hurdles: the first is the extraction
of the proteins from the plants, and the second is to structure these proteins such, that we can
make nice-tasting products out of it – not necessarily imitations of meat, but at least tasty in their
own right. It is possible to extract a protein rich fraction out of many plants – soy, pea, wheat, etc.,
but this is typically done by milling and dissolving part of the protein in a lot of hot water (compare
the production of sugar). In the production of soy protein isolate (SPI) for example, the proteins in
solution are then often precipitated with acids. The resulting curd is then washed, centrifuged and

10
Weidema B.P., et al., 2008, Environmental improvement potentials of meat and dairy products, Report for the
European Commission Joint Research Centre

Page IV-16
 Chapter IV – Sustainable Food Processing

dried. In the production of soy protein concentrate (SPC, different from SPI), the soy flour is
contacted with 20 – 80 % of alcohol at low pH (4 - 5), which will allow dissolution of carbohydrates,
salts and some of the proteins, but the rest of the proteins will stay undissolved. Neutralizing the
residue and drying then results in soy protein concentrate. From the description it may be clear
that once more much dilution, chemicals and salts are used in the production of these types of
components. This does cost a lot of energy and water, produces large quantities of waste and is
therefore not very sustainable. In effect, this leads to the surprising result that while plant proteins
are still more sustainable to produce than meat, they still are quite resource intensive to produce.
This is especially true for isolates, which have been processed more heavily, and they do get into
the range of meat proteins, especially pork. For the less processed concentrates, we see lower
global warming potential, but still not as low as one might expect.

15
2 Plant protein isolates
Figure 18. Global
10
warming potential of
Beef
plant protein isolates
5 Pork, chicken
(upper figure) and
0
concentrates (lower
figure).
Safflower

Hemp
Cottonseed

Mustard
Rapeseed

Lentil
Lupine
Pea

Sesame

Poppy
Soybean
Groundnuts
Linseed

Chickpea
Sunflower

Beans dry

Pigpeon bean
Broadbean

Plant proteins are less

intensive to grow,
relative to animal
10
proteins, create but
Plant protein concentrates Beef
2
require much more
5
Pork, chicken processing to concentrate
or isolate (44 – 48% of
total GWP).
0
Cottonseed
Rye

Rapeseed
Wheat

Hemp
Mustard
Potato

Safflower
Broad bean

Quinoa

Lentil
Lupine
Surghum

Sesame
Pea

Cassava
Pearl millet
Triticale

Soybean

Buckwheat

Poppy

Chickory root
Sunflower

Maize

Chickpea

Ginger
Sweet potato
Barley
Oat

Rice

Pigpeon bean
Linseed

Yam
Groundnuts

Beans dry

Source: N. Braconi,
Wageningen Univ. /
Blonk Consultants, 2018

This does not yet include the further processing of these proteins, since they still need to be
assembled into meat analogues. This is generally done by first structuring them into ‘texturised
vegetable proteins’ (TVP) using extrusion, creating a half product that then has to be further
processed into final products. The proteins are suspended into water, and some components are
added, when it is introduced into the extruder. The extruder heats the suspension, and (some of
the) proteins set and crosslink into a solid matrix. By the constant churning of shearing of the
extruder, an internal structure is produced, which comes out in the form of a roughly fibrous
structure. This is the basis of for example the Tivall products.
Another process is the type that is based on the Kweldam patent11. Here, a suspension of the
protein is mixed with alginate, a carbohydrate that does not mix with the proteins, but which
becomes solid with calcium ions. After mixing the alginate with the protein, calcium salt is added,
which solidifies the alginate, which then also fixates the protein phase, with which it is entangled.
Also this process requires a lot of water, just like the production of more or less pure alginate (done
with a lot of chemicals), and calcium salts.
A third process is to use the proteins as nutrient for fungi, which produce fibrillar hyphae.
Harvesting these hyphae then gives a fibrillar product as well. This process, used for production of
Quorn is not very efficient as well: it is done in a lot of water, the conversion of plant protein to
fungal hyphae is not very efficient (a lot is lost) and the whole process requires lengthy post-
processing and repeated heating and cooling.
In the end, most of the half-products are assembled into complete products by (high-moisture)
extrusion, setting, sometimes crosslinking, and hydrating and infusing them with a bouillon and

11
US patent 20050112268

Page IV-17
FPE 31806 – Sustainability in food chains

flavour mixtures. They are then often pasteurised and cooled or frozen for distribution towards
retail.
As discussed, much of the resource efficiency that could be gained by switching to plant proteins
is lost in the isolation or concentration of the plant proteins. Therefore, there is a lot of activity in
finding more resource-efficient alternative ways of processing. There is much attention to ‘gentle’
processing, in which either only low water or no water at all is used. Examples of this way of
processing were already shown in sections IV.3.1 and IV.3.2. Similar technology can be applied for
plant proteins. The raw material may first have to be mechanically dehulled; after that it is milled
into a flour, and either air classification or other methods such as electrostatic separation are used
to separate the flour particles that are rich in protein.

Starch-rich Oil-rich
legume legume

Milling Milling

Suspension Extraction
in water oil Legume

Starch Hydro- Suspension

cyclone in water Milling

Dissolve protein Air classi-

fication
Precipitate protein
Fine fraction Coarse
Neutralise (protein) fraction

Dry

Protein isolate

Figure 19. A typical conventional wet process for the isolation of plant proteins (left hand diagram) and a dry
route (right hand diagram), which has been proven for cereals such as corn and wheat, legumes and pulses
such as yellow pea, chickpea, faba, soy, lupine, lentils, and for some pseudo-cereals such as quinoa.

Since the process does not involve any water, no drying is required, so it is low in energy use. The
yield (recovery) of the proteins can be quite high, however the purity of the enriched fraction is
not very high at 50 – 75%. This implies that the fractions contain a significant amount of other
materials; mostly fibre. Surprisingly, it was found that these impure fractions were quite suitable
for creation of meat analogues. The hypothesis is that this is because the impurities act as second
phase that enables the creation of an inhomogeneous structure consisting of elongated domains
of one phase, separated by the other phase.
The digestibility of these ‘gently processed’ proteins appears to be quite high and higher than more
heavily processed plant proteins. These proteins are also excellent emulsifiers. Emulsions
stabilised with these proteins (slightly purified using water as sedimentation medium) were much
more stable than emulsions with their conventionally isolated counterparts. This shows that less
purification may not imply poorer performance and in fact may even give better performance in
food products.
Of course, while making protein concentrates, one also makes fractions that are depleted in
proteins. Next to the protein concentrate, a starch concentrate can be created. Also this
concentrate is impure, with for example about 32% fibre for pea starch. However, the thickening
effect that can be achieved in a sauce with such a starch concentrate is just as large as with a
conventionally processed pure starch; even though the concentrate contains app. 30% less starch.
The fibre apparently also contributes to the thickening. Once more, we see that less processing
does noty mean worse performance. And of course, a reduction of the starch content with 30
contributes to a lower calorific value, contributing to a better diet.

Page IV-18
 Chapter IV – Sustainable Food Processing

Finally, also oils can be extracted with gentle processing. The conventional oil extraction process
involves mechanical expression followed by extraction with hexane. While this is very efficient, it
denatures the proteins in the soy, while the oils are refined so far that they have to be immediately
supplemented with antioxidants (e.g., tocopherol) to avoid very fast degradation. It produces
however very pure oil. There is however concern with consumers about the use of hexane, which
does leave some residue in the oil, and it is not completely clear whether this fully benign. Also
here, the issue around consumer trust is important. The replacement of hexane by other solvents,
such as supercritical CO2 has not been successful, as this requires capital investments that are very
high, which are not feasible for oils with only moderate value.

Soy Heating
Crushing Flaking Pressing
beans (toasting)

Filtration Distillation Evapo-

Lecithin
ration

Extraction Evapo-
Swelling Separation Soy oil
ration

Defatten
Heating Drying
ed flakes

Figure 20. Conventional expression and hexane extraction of oils from seeds (e.g., soy).

There is strong and renewed interest in a way to gently extract the oils, which does not denature
proteins and until now still gives lower yields, but avoids the use of hexane on favour of just water,
and may also reduce the necessity of additives. Oils in seeds are located in oleosomes or oil bodies,
vesicles surrounded by a phospholipid membrane also containing a variety of proteins. By blending
the seeds in water and filtering off the solids, one may obtain a dispersion of the intact oil bodies.
This suspension still contains other constituents such as proteins and some carbohydrates, but can
be a quite stable emulsion. Given that many oils are in fact applied in the form of emulsions, one
may consider using these dispersions directly in foods. Recent work showed that the oil bodies can
also be dried into a powder (of a liquid oil), which can be easily redispersed into water.

0.05–3 μm Oleaginous
Water
seeds

Blending

Filtering

Centri- Solids
fugation

Oil bodies

Figure 21. Left: oils in oil seeds are present as oil bodies, protected by a phospholipid membrane that also
contains proteins that protect the oils against premature oxidation. Right: the principle of isolating oil bodies
from a seed (left), by first disrupting the seeds by blending, filtering off the solids, a suspension of intact oil bodies
can be isolated.

The most interesting aspect however is that these intact oil bodies exhibit very high physical and
chemical stability. The proteins in the phosholipid membrane act as natural antioxidant systems,

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FPE 31806 – Sustainability in food chains

preventing oxidation of the oils. Therefore, no addition of antioxidants or chelating agents is

necessary. Therefore, these oil bodies lend themselves well to be applied in products that should
not contain any additives (clean labelling). This is an important trend related to the low consumer
trust, which was one of the most important challenges for the food industry to answer.
The use of gentle processing for the production of ingredients to be used in for example meat
replacers will be essential in the transition towards more sustainable protein for the global
population, while still having scope for reducing the global warming effects that our food
production delivers. It also makes the design of food products more complex, since they are not
pure, and since they retain part of their natural complexity, their composition and quality may
even vary over time.
Oil Oil Oil

Mildly Mildly
refined oil refined oil

Protein drink Protein drink Protein drink

Meat analogues Meat analogues Meat analogues

Yoghurts Yoghurts Yoghurts Dry processed
Dry processed
Pasta protein concentrate Pasta protein concentrate
Pasta

Carbohydrate Protein Carbohydrate Protein

Carbohydrate Protein

Figure 22. Foods can be considered to basically consist of three classes of components: protein, carbohydrates
and lipids. We have nowadays concentrated on the use of (almost) pure ingredients, since this gives us the largest
flexibility in formulation and the best stability in quality. The use of less processed ingredients has the potential
to greatly reduce the environmental impact, but reduces the flexibility in product design. Use of the right gentle
processing will open up sufficient flexibility for food design. Source: J. Jonkman, PhD thesis, Wageningen Univ.,
2018

To obtain the same flexibility in food formulation, one can use these gently processed concentrates,
but to obtain a sufficiently large window for application, one has to use more of these
concentrates. Jonkman showed recently, that instead of the conventional three constituents one
has to use at least 8 gently processed concentrates to substantiate its potential in resource
efficiency.

100 Figure 23. Use of gently processed intermediates

may greatly reduce the use of water and energy,
Water use and improve the use of raw materials, but at the
Energy use cost of more complexity.
For production of a range of products (pasta,
50 bakery, meat analogues, protein drinks, and
some functional foods, more intermediates (up to
8) have to be produced for the same level of
formulation flexibility as possible with 3 pure
ingredients (representing 100% in resource use).
0
Source: J. Jonkman, PhD thesis, Wageningen
j=4 j=6 j=8 j = 10 j = 12
Univ., 2018

Therefore the use of less processing may well be the way forward, but it will be at the cost of larger
complexity in food production and design, may possible lead to larger variation in quality of food
products in time, and in fact may also lead to changes in texture and taste. Therefore, this change
will be gradual, and will require consumers to be open to it. Since these intermediates also open
the way towards clean labelling, this may well be the case.

IV.4.4 Conclusions
There has been an important trend away from single-ingredient processing and thinking, towards
complete use of raw materials, by converting these fully into high-value food products. This has
fist happened in the dairy industry, and is now happening with potato and sugar refining. This
makes sure that we make much better use of the raw materials, and reduce the amount of watse

Page IV-20
 Chapter IV – Sustainable Food Processing

generated along the chain. The disadvantage is that many of the processes used are still quite
resource intensive.
A second way towards better effectiveness, is by omitting part of the conventional chain in the
production of proteins, by the transition from meat towards plant proteins. This has the potential
for a major improvement in sustainability, but is also hampered by the inefficiency in the isolation
of plant proteins from their raw materials.
The only way to improve this efficiency is to reduce the level of processing. This can be done by
using similar technologies as were already discussed in sections IV.3.1 and IV.3.2, but this has
consequences for the whole chain, as the created ingredients are highly functional, but not pure.
This can be accommodated by producing and employing significantly more of those gently
processed intermediates, which adds to the investment and complexity in the overall food
production chain.

IV.5 Conclusions on Process Intensification

The conversion of primary harvested crop into products that are purchased and consumed by
consumers is not efficient. The conversion chain is not efficient; a lot of water and energy is used
in the total chain. Most of the energy consumption is directly coupled to the use of water, since
the streams need to be dehydrated again. This often requires the evaporation of a large amount
of water, which is very energy intensive. The use of much water is also connected to significant
loss of raw material, which ends up in the waste water.
Therefore, process intensification in the food industry aims at reducing the amount of water, and
process the foods in more concentrated form. Some examples of this approach were shown; for
corn, for wheat and for potato processing. In some cases the water and energy consumption could
be reduced to a tiny fraction of the original values.
The use of the raw materials can be made more complete by investing in complete conversion of
the raw materials into high-value products. This trend started in the dairy sector, where nowadays
whey is a major raw material for very high-value products, and is now being implemented in the
potato processing and sugar refining industry.
Another trends is to eliminate whole sections of the food supply chain, which is most clear in the
replacement of meat products by plant based products. The emergence of meat analogues is a
major trend in the world, and may well enable us to produce sufficient proteins for the whole
world population in 2050. However, the isolation of the plant proteins for these products is still
much too inefficient.
This can be mitigated by using less processing, allowing more complete use of the raw materials,
and a further reduction in the use of energy and water, but will have major consequences for the
whole chain. However, the combination of less refining and hence higher levels of fibre and
micronutrients in our food, plus the elimination of many additives by the native functionality of
these concentrates, will allow the food industry to at least party answer all three big societal
challenges that we focus: reduction of overweight, restoration of the trust that consumers have in
our food, and strong improvement of the overall resource efficiency, in accordance with the 2015
Paris Agreement.

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