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Browsing by Author "Rock, Edmond"

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  • Food processing and sustainability: Exploring new multidisciplinary perspectives
    Publication . Fardet, Anthony; Boland, Mike; Hong-Minh, Hoang; Delgado, Amélia; Halawany-Darson, Rafia; Germond, Arnaud; Nedelciu, Claudiu Eduard; Kopsahelis, Nikolaos; Diemeri, Arnaud; Baritaux, Virginie; Galli, Francesca; Rock, Edmond
    Until now, the main targets for improving food system sustainability have been food production and consumers’ behaviors (the first and the last links in the agri-food chain). Food processing has been less studied. This perspective paper aims at addressing food processing as a relevant lever to improve food system sustainability, from producers to consumers. The conclusions and perspectives presented here are based on six round-tables carried out during the 2020-2021 period with an international and multidisciplinary consortium, including French, Portuguese, Norwegian, Greek and New Zealander researchers. Beyond the identification of four emerging topics as perspectives about food processing and sustainability, the consortium reached the following generic conclusions: 1) Highly processed diets have serious impacts on nutrition, public health and the environment on a global scale. Thus, the major challenge today is to develop less processed foods that are tasty, health, safe, accessible, ethical, socially and culturally accepted for nearly ten billion people by 2050 while preserving the environment and limiting wastes; 2) Therefore, food processing sustainability improvements should not only include the optimization of processes via siloed approaches, but also holistic changes, i.e., including all dimensions of healthy sustainable processed foods, and that should be locally co-created with other actors of the agri-food chain. This would mean to importantly relocate food processing at a small scale.
    2025-06Journal article Open access Show more
  • How may food processing achieve food and nutrition security for enhanced sustainability?
    Publication . Fardet, Anthony; Gold, Stefan; Delgado, Amélia; Kopsahelis, Nikolaos; Kachrimanidou, Vasiliki; Kaur, Lovedeep; Galli, Francesca; Rock, Edmond
    In the agri-food chain, while the impact of producers and consumers on sustainability has been well studied, food processing has been less explored. This position paper aims to discuss the potential of food processing to address all food and nutrition security (FNS) outcomes in order to achieve improved food system sustainability. First, FNS dimensions and the four pillars of agro-food industry sustainability are defined, with a focus on ultra-processed foods. Second, the food matrix concept is developed as a new paradigm to holistically address all FNS. It is concluded that food processing should become more involved in circular food systems and bioeconomy, and that we need to relocate food production, processing, and consumption to be more aligned with regional food production specificities. For this, minimal processing to preserve food matrices should be preferred. Therefore, the strong current tendency to develop reductionist and siloed innovative solutions to improve the sustainability of food systems should be questioned.
    2024-01-17Journal article Open access Show more