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2022; Wiley; Volume: 36; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/fsat.3603_2.x

2689-1816

Melanie Brown,

Seed and Plant Biochemistry

In this issue we focus on food supply and the issues that are impacting the increasingly complex network of interactions between global food businesses that deliver food to our tables. The Ukraine war has caused major disruption to global food supply chains; while the immediate impacts on output and prices of corn, wheat and sunflower seed and oil are apparent, the long term outlook for supply of these crops from Ukraine remains very uncertain (p20). Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming food production; its ability to handle huge volumes of data to inform decision making is offering a step change in the connectivity and automation that can be achieved. This enables supply chain data to be used to enhance efficiency and optimise environmental performance, for example by collecting greenhouse gas emission data along the supply chain (p24, p28). While the technology for automated data collection, reporting and decision making is already available, one of the stumbling blocks is the need for trust and collaboration between partners in the supply chain (p28, p33). Companies are naturally reticent about making performance data available and in many cases do not keep detailed digital records. However, innovations in data recording, interpretation and protection could improve data sharing and help to increase the connectivity of food supply chains (p33). New technologies are also emerging with the potential to enhance production efficiency and quality assurance, for example new multi-spectral X-ray cameras, which can increase the sensitivity of measurement and differentiation of foreign objects in foods (p38). I would like to welcome Karen Pardoe to the Advisory Panel for FS&T and to thank Sterling Crew, who is standing down from the Panel, for his valuable contributions over the last three years. email mb@biophase.co.uk Letters to the editor about any of the articles published in Food Science and Technology are welcomed. The second EAT-Lancet Commission was launched in June this year at Stockholm+50 to revise global science-based targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production, and to ultimately chart a course to a resilient food future that helps us to tackle human health, conflict and climate change. Led by the science-based non-profit, EAT, in collaboration with partners the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Harvard University and OneCGIAR, the second EAT-Lancet Commission will update and expand the evidence base for equitable and inclusive food systems to tackle rising global hunger, human health challenges and climate change. In 2019, the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health1 published the first set of global scientific targets for healthy diets and set out six environmental boundaries for food production, flagging the disproportionately large impact that food has on planetary boundaries. The Commission showed that feeding 10bn people a healthy diet within safe planetary boundaries by 2050 is both possible and necessary. The adoption of the ‘Planetary Health Diet’ would help avoid severe environmental degradation and prevent approximately 11m premature adult deaths annually. EAT-Lancet 2.0, due to report in 2024, will be co-chaired by Walter Willett (Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health), Johan Rockström (Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research), and Shakuntala Thilsted (Global Lead, Nutrition and Public Health, WorldFish CGIAR, 2021 World Food Prize Laureate). The Commission is made up of 25 commissioners from 19 countries to reflect diverse perspectives across continents and in various fields including human health, agriculture and livestock production, political science, behaviour change, food justice and environmental sustainability. According to Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, ‘We require nothing less than a total re-construction of human civilisation within a single generation, and all of this begins with the very foundation of that civilisation, food.’ EAT Founder, Gunhild Stordalen, commented: ‘Although there has been much progress since the first EAT-Lancet in 2019, we still lack consensus on global targets. We continue to accelerate in the wrong direction, on a full collision course with nature, away from a future worth having for humanity.’ Scientists at the Quadram Institute already use advanced genomic sequencing approaches and genomic epidemiology, which has significantly enhanced the UK's ability to monitor and respond to microbial threats in the food system (demonstrated by the Quadram team in its work on the SARSCoV-2 pandemic). The UK Food Safety Network aims to connect the food industry, food and health policymakers and academia to collaboratively pursue shared research priorities that will protect the UK from foodborne hazards. It will serve as an innovation hub to coordinate and fund cross-sectoral research and training activities that address current and emerging challenges. The FSA has set out plans to allow edible insects to remain on the market while they go through the Novel Foods authorisation process to assess their safety3. It is keen to bring forward the necessary legal changes as soon as possible depending on the responses received during a public consultation. Illustration: Veronica Giacintucci MIFST, Teaching Fellow in Food Science The current proposals will allow edible insects to remain on sale if they were marketed in the EU or the UK before 1 January 2018 and were the subject of an application to the EU for authorisation as a novel food by 1 January 2019. Applications for authorisation of these insects must be made to the FSA or FSS by 31 December 2023 for the product to remain on the market while the application is assessed. A generalised risk assessment conducted by the FSA and FSS to support the consultation has found that the safety risks associated with edible insect products are low, provided appropriate measures are in place. These include hygiene measures during rearing of the insects to avoid contamination, heat treatment and labelling on allergy risks. FSA research shows that over one quarter (26%) of UK consumers would be willing to try eating edible insects – with environmental concerns or sustainability the most common reasons4. The Transforming Food Production challenge, which is part of UK Research and Innovation's (UKRI) Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, has published a new report entitled Alternative Proteins: Identifying UK Priorities5. This has been created in collaboration with Growing Kent & Medway, a research, innovation and enterprise cluster supporting growth in technology-driven horticulture, fresh produce packaging, food and drink processing and its supply chains. It also addresses various issues surrounding supply and demand, and opportunities presented by the post-Brexit landscape; it aims to strengthen the UK's capabilities in the alternative protein supply chain. New research has shown how introducing genetics from wild varieties of wheat can improve their resistance to disease and climate change, a discovery that could help protect the future of this vital food source. Scientists from the University of Nottingham in collaboration with the John Innes Institute have transferred genetic variability into wheat from its wild relatives to enable resistance to a major disease of wheat, fusarium head blight (FHB) and to breed new wheat varieties that are high yielding but also adapted to climate change. Their findings have been published in two papers in Frontiers in Plant Science6, 7. Fusarium head blight is a highly damaging disease of both bread wheat and durum wheat in many parts of the world. The disease is caused by several species of Fusarium fungus. The fungus can severely reduce yield but also produces mycotoxins that contaminate grain and pose a risk to human health. A worldwide study of crop pests and pathogens in 2019 estimated a 21.5% global yield loss for wheat with FHB as the second most damaging disease8. The researchers have revealed variability for characters which come from a wild relative called Triticum timopheevii that is resistant to FHB. As there is very little variability for resistance to this disease in wheat itself, this resistance from a wild relative has a critical role to play in future global wheat production. The Nottingham team has developed new strategies to transfer genes from wild varieties that mimic the normal processes of reproduction that occur in nature. Using these methods the researchers have generated thousands of plants with genetic variability and also developed large numbers of diagnostic genetic markers that tag the genetic variability from the wild relatives. According to Professor Julie King, Research Director of the programme at Nottingham, the goal is to make the genetic variability of the wild relatives of wheat available to everyone. A new report from ‘WRAP, Surplus food redistribution in the UK 2015 – 2021’9, shows that the amount of food saved from becoming waste continues to rise significantly, with a 16% increase in 2021. However each year nearly 200,000 tonnes of perfectly good food still goes to waste in the UK supply chain. A recent report from Greenpeace10 highlights the results of ‘The Big Plastic Count’, which has provided a unique snapshot of the scale of the country's ability to manage plastic waste. Over one week in May, nearly a quarter-of-a-million people counted their plastic waste to contribute to this first of its kind citizen science investigation. The results suggest that the UK's homes produce 96.6bn pieces of plastic packaging waste a year, with only 12% being recycled in the UK. The rest is exported to other countries to deal with (17%), buried in landfill (25%) or burnt in incinerators (45%).The results indicate that the waste collection system cannot cope with the enormous amount of waste being generated. According to Greenpeace, the only solution to plastic pollution is stopping our reliance on plastic. It is urging the Government to set legally binding targets to almost entirely eliminate single-use plastic, starting with a target of a 50% cut in single-use plastic by 2025. It is also calling on the Government to ban plastic waste exports, set a moratorium on new incinerators and implement a Deposit Return Scheme for plastic bottles and new Extended Producer Responsibility requirements. Researchers in Spain at the Universidad de Burgos have developed an in situ methodology for determining nitrite concentration in processed meats that can be used by consumers11. It is based on a colorimetric film-shaped sensory polymer that changes colour upon contacting the meat and a mobile app that automatically calculates the manufacturing and residual nitrite concentration by taking digital photographs of sensory films and analysing digital colour parameters. The film-shaped polymer sensor detects nitrite anions by an azo-coupling reaction. The sensory polymer is complemented with an app, which analyses the colour in two different digital colour spaces (RGB and HSV) and performs a set of 32 data fittings representing the concentration of nitrite versus eight different variables, finally providing the nitrite concentration of the test samples using the best fitting curve. The calculated concentration of nitrite correlates with a validated method (ISO 2918: 1975) usually used to determine nitrite, and no statistically significant difference has been found between this new method and the standard method (26 meat samples, eight prepared, and 18 commercial). 12-16 September 2022 DRINKTEC Venue Munich, Germany web tradefairdates.com/drinktec-M3142/Munich.html 13 October 2022 SCOTLAND FOOD & BEVERAGE MANUFACTURING EXPO Venue Glasgow web scotlandfooddrinkmanufacturing.co.uk/ 31 October – 3 November 2022 21ST WORLD CONGRESS OF FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Venue Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, Singapore web iufostworldcongresssingapore.com/home 7-9 November 2022 SHAPING THE PRODUCTION OF SUSTAINABLE, HEALTHY FOODS FOR THE FUTURE, 36TH EFFOST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Venue Dublin, Ireland web effost.org/effost+international+conference/effost+conference+2022/default.aspx 18-19 November 2022 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INNOVATIVE FOOD PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Venue London web waset.org/innovative-food-processing-technologies-and-future-directions-conference 30 November – 1 December 2022 PLANT BASED WORLD EXPO Venue Olympia, London, UK web plantbasedworldeurope.com/ 6-8 December 2022 FI EUROPE AND HI EUROPE Venue Paris web expobeds.com/event/fi-europe-hi