LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to provide students with the concepts related to the processes, technologies and plants of the food industry, deepening the relative unit operations. The course also provides the elements for the management of food systems with particular reference to the quality and safety of the product.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Attendance and active participation in the proposed training activities (lectures, numerical and laboratory exercises) and individual study will allow the student to understand the fundamentals of food preservation technologies and related unit operations such as:

• Understanding the chemical-physical mechanisms related to the degradation of nutrients and assessing the plant solutions to be adopted to limit the deterioration of food products.
• Knowledge of some food production and preservation processes of food products.
• Analytical evaluation of some chemical-physical parameters of food through laboratory experiments.
• Sizing parameters evaluation for the main equipment used in the food industry.
• Critically discuss the formulated working hypotheses using the appropriate vocabulary.

PREREQUISITES

For a successful learning basic knowledge of chemistry, organic chemistry and chemical plants are required, but no formal pre-requisites are mandatory.

TEACHING METHODS

The course consists of lectures, numerical and laboratory exercises, educational visits to food industries aimed at encouraging the learning and discussion of specific examples of food and process engineering applications.

The transversal competences in terms of autonomy in making a decision will be acquired through the numerical and laboratory exercises to be carried out in the classroom also as group work.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The module program consists in the presentation and discussion of the following topics:

• Introduction to the course. The food industry as a process industry and its evolution over time.
• Thermal damage in food preservation processes, study of degradation processes of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids.
• Description of physical, chemical and biological food storage methods.
• Factors that influence microbial inactivation; inactivation kinetics: thermal death curves, decimal reduction time, thermal resistance; thermal death time and commercial sterilization concept; calculation of the treatment time as a consequence of the temperature changes.
• Heat treatments: pasteurization and sterilization, concentration by evaporation: discontinuous and continuous equipment, effect of the process on the product.
• Cryogenic treatments: freezing and deep-freezing. Basic principles, applications and equipment.
• Dehydration treatments: drying, spray drying and freeze-drying. Basic principles, applications and equipment.
• Mild Technologies: athermal technologies for food preservation. Basic principles, applications and equipment.
• Detailed description of food processes of typical industrial chains, development of new products and labeling.
• Numerical and laboratory exercises on specific topics of the course.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The teaching material used during the lessons will be provided to the students during the course. The notes taken during the lessons and the material provided are sufficient for the preparation of the exam, but the following books are suggested as supporting texts.

P.J. Fellows, Food processing technology, Ellis Horwood, New York, 1988

R.T. Toledo, Fundamentals of food process engineering, AVI Publ. Com., Westport, 1980

A.S. Foust et al., The principles of the unitary operations, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1980