Food industry

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Food industry

Answer 1

Factory-kitchen

A Factory-kitchen or kitchen factory (Russian: Фабрика-кухня) was a large mechanized enterprise of food service in the Soviet Union, originated in 1920-1930s. Its main purpose was centralized preparation of food (both prefabrication and full processing) supplied for communal dining rooms or for personal purchase. Factory-kitchens were characteristic of their unique architecture. Sometimes the term is inadequately translated as communal kitchen, the latter being a kitchen in a Soviet communal apartment.

The idea of centralized food preparation was part of the emancipation of the women from the household work in early Soviet Union, and to better tap into women's workforce. Along with the house-communes (дом-коммуна), factory-kitchens were to get rid of "the yoke of the household economy". Slogans of the day were "Away with Pots and Pans!" and "The Saucepan is an Enemy of the Party Cell.

Various propagandists explained how "a single person can prepare from fifty to hundred dinners a day". A children's book A Cook for a Whole City described in detail how efficiently a kitchen-factory works

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Answer 2

The Food Channel

The Food Channel

The Food Channel (not affiliated with Food Network) is an American consumer Web site with food recipes, news, reviews and advice. The site compiles information to produce food industry trends and aims to be a gateway for all things food.

Site content is separated into four categories: recipes, articles, blogs and videos. Recipes are created by The Food Channel chefs, as well as recipes from featured cookbooks. Content for the site is generated by a team of editors and the chefs of The Food Channel. Food bloggers also contribute content to the site.

The Food Channel began as a newsletter in the 1980s. It predicted and reported trends in the food industry. The newsletter was published 23 times per year by Noble Communications (formerly Noble and Associates).

The Web site was launched on January 21, 2008 by Noble Communications under the direction of CEO, Bob Noble. Headquartered in Springfield, Missouri, the site was in Beta version for about one year, in which time new site features were tested and added. On January 22, 2009, the Web site finished Beta testing.

While in Beta stage, The Food Channel was nominated for the "We Love This Site" Web Award by the blogging site DivineCaroline.com.

The Food Channel compiles information to spot industry trends. Using information gathered by The Food Channel and Noble's CultureWaves team, food industry trends are analyzed and reported on the site. In late 2008, the site released the Top Ten Food Trends of 2009. Developed by The Food Channel, with contributions from Neemee and the International Food Futurists, the list identifies the significant food movements for consumers, food service professionals and manufacturers.

In October 2008, the site introduced a food recipe Web widget. The widget provides users with daily recipes created by the site's chefs or provided by partner sites. The recipe widget is a follow up to the food trends widget introduced one month prior. The widget is a box consisting of nine round buttons which display different content when scrolled over. The widget is used by a regional publication with a network of 90 magazines.

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Answer 3

Food grading

Food grading involves the inspection, assessment and sorting of various foods regarding quality, freshness, legal conformity and market value. Food grading often occurs by hand, in which foods are assessed and sorted. Machinery is also used to grade foods, and may involve sorting products by size, shape and quality. For example, machinery can be used to remove spoiled food from fresh product.

Beef grading in the United States is performed by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural and Marketing Service. There are eight beef quality grades, with U.S. Prime being the highest grade and U.S. Canner being the lowest grade. Beef grading is a complex and detailed process, requiring graders to think and calculate quickly with great accuracy. Using technology to complement and supplement the onsite human graders generates an efficient and more precise process.

In beer grading, the letter "X" is used on some beers, and was traditionally a mark of beer strength, with the more Xs the greater the strength. Some sources suggest that the origin of the mark was in the breweries of medieval monasteries Another plausible explanation is contained in a treatise entitled "The Art of Brewing" published in London in 1829. It says; "The duties on ale and beer, which were first imposed in 1643... at a certain period, in distinguishing between small beer and strong, all ale or beer, sold at or above ten shillings per barrel, was reckoned to be strong and was, therefore, subjected to a higher duty. The cask which contained this strong beer was then first marked with an X signifying ten; and hence the present quack-like denominations of XX (double X) and XXX (treble X) on the casks and accounts of the strong-ale brewers".

In mid-19th century England, the use of "X" and other letters had evolved into a standardised grading system for the strength of beer. Today, it is used as a trade mark by a number of brewers in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and the United States.

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Answer 4

Food distribution

Food distribution is the process in which a general population is supplied with food. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) considers food distribution as a subset of the food system. The process and methodology behind food distribution varies by location. Food distribution has been a defining characteristic of human behavior in all societies, and recordings of food distribution date back for thousands of years.

One clear and defined documentation of historical food distribution comes from the Roman Republic and Empire. Many Roman rulers and emperors sought to determine the best method of distributing food throughout the Mediterranean, and as the demands of the Roman people changed in time, so too did their leaders’ plans. In the few centuries after the death of Christ, the annona became a prominent aspect in Roman food distribution. As the Empire expanded and the accessibility to certain foods changed, the demand for grain and wine drastically increased, and became a defining aspect of Roman food culture.

Societies prominent after the fall of the Romans continued to deal with the ever-present dilemma of food distribution. The distribution systems of the United States and Latin America have developed in unique ways, and faced different problems in the past century. The United States' food distribution system is vast in size and strength, and is dominated by corporations and industry. Current methods of food distribution in the US rely on the country's advanced network of infrastructure and transportation. In less developed parts of the world like Latin America, food distribution differs from the US.

There are a multitude of risk factors that can affect food distribution. War, economic failure, political problems, and weather conditions all play a role in determining the efficiency of any food system. Two recent examples of war and economic failure impacting food distribution includes the decline of food distribution in Japan during World War II and food recession in Sub-Saharan Africa during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In both cases, food distribution was negatively affected and the population in these areas consequently suffered.

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Answer 5

Food engineering

Food engineering is a multidisciplinary field of applied physical sciences which combines science, microbiology, and engineering education for food and related industries. Food engineering includes, but is not limited to, the application of agricultural engineering, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering principles to food materials. Food engineers provide the technological knowledge transfer essential to the cost-effective production and commercialization of food products and services. Physics, chemistry, and mathematics are fundamental to understanding and engineering products and operations in the food industry.

Food engineering encompasses a wide range of activities. Food engineers are employed in food processing, food machinery, packaging, ingredient manufacturing, instrumentation, and control. Firms that design and build food processing plants, consulting firms, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and health-care firms also employ food engineers. Specific food engineering activities include:

In the development of food engineering, one of the many challenges is to employ modern tools, technology, and knowledge, such as computational materials science and nanotechnology, to develop new products and processes. Simultaneously, improving quality, safety, and security remain critical issues in food engineering study. New packaging materials and techniques are being developed to provide more protection to foods, and novel preservation technology is emerging. Additionally, process control and automation regularly appear among the top priorities identified in food engineering. Advanced monitoring and control systems are developed to facilitate automation and flexible food manufacturing. Furthermore, energy saving and minimization of environmental problems continue to be important food engineering issues, and significant progress is being made in waste management, efficient utilization of energy, and reduction of effluents and emissions in food production.

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Answer 6

Food extrusion

Food extrusion is a form of extrusion used in food processing. It is a process by which a set of mixed ingredients are forced through an opening in a perforated plate or die with a design specific to the food, and is then cut to a specified size by blades. The machine which forces the mix through the die is an extruder, and the mix is known as the extrudate. The extruder consists of a large, rotating screw tightly fitting within a stationary barrel, at the end of which is the die.

Extrusion enables mass production of food via a continuous, efficient system that ensures uniformity of the final product. Food products manufactured using extrusion usually have a high starch content. These include some pasta, breads (croutons, bread sticks, and flat breads), many breakfast cereals and ready-to-eat snacks, confectionery, pre-made cookie dough, some baby foods, full-fat soy, textured vegetable protein, some beverages, and dry and semi-moist pet foods.

In the extrusion process, raw materials are first ground to the correct particle size, usually the consistency of coarse flour. The dry mix is passed through a pre-conditioner, in which other ingredients are added depending on the target product; these may be liquid sugar, fats, dyes, meats or water. Steam is injected to start the cooking process, and the preconditioned mix (extrudate) is then passed through an extruder. The extruder consists of a large, rotating screw tightly fitting within a stationary barrel, at the end of which is the die. The extruder's rotating screw forces the extrudate toward the die, through which it then passes. The amount of time the extrudate is in the extruder is the residence time.

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Answer 7

Food hubs

A food hub, as defined by the USDA, is “a centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.” Food hubs are a part of the agricultural value chain model and often share common values relating to conservation, sustainability, healthy food access, and supporting local farmers. A defining characteristic of food hubs is source identification, a food safety and marketing benefit that allows consumers to trace the origin of products they buy. One of the primary goals of food hubs is to give small and medium-sized farmers access to larger or additional markets. Food hubs also fill gaps in food systems infrastructure, such as transportation, product storage, and product processing. Although companies and organizations that fit the USDA definition have been operating in the United States since at least the early 1970s, most food hubs, as well as the common use of the term, started in or after 2008.

Food hubs handle some or all of the following:

Food hubs are generally categorized into three different types.

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Answer 8

Food industry in Bangladesh

Food industry is a rapidly growing sector in Bangladesh, employing a significant portion of the labor force in the country. Between 2004 and 2010, the food processing industry in Bangladesh grew at an average 7.7 percent per annum. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, in its 25006 Economic Census, reported that there were approximately 246 medium-sized food processing industries employing 19 percent of the industrial manufacturing workforce in Bangladesh or 8 percent of the total manufacturing labor force. The food industry employs 2.45 percent of the country's total labor force and its share in the GDP was 2.01 percent in 2010. There are also numerous small scale factories and domestic units engaged in food processing throughout the country. According to some industry analysts, the food processing sector in Bangladesh is a 4.5 billion US Dollar industry. In 2010, Bangladesh exported over $700 million worth of processed food and beverages, over 60 percent of them were shrimp and fish products.

Food processing in Bangladesh has traditionally been small scale, with domestic or family business using common processing knowledge for the conservation and handling of raw agricultural commodities to make them usable as food and feed. Although commercial scale food processing using modern technology especially for wheat and rice milling, mustard seed crushing and very limited bread and cookie manufacturing appeared during the 1960s, the growth of this sector did not gain momentum in terms of operational scale and quality until the 1980s. Recently the defining characteristics of the industry has been the processing of increasingly diverse products to meet the changing demands of the Bangladesh population. The major food processing sub-sectors in Bangladesh include dairy, edible oil, sugar, rice, wheat, fruit and vegetable, tea, poultry/beaf, pulses and spices and fish processing industries. Induced by the vigorous growth of the diverse middle class population of Bangladesh and the growing demands for additional consumption, the food processing sector is set to witness further hefty expansion in the coming years.

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Answer 9

Food manufacturing

Food manufacturing is the process by which food is manufactured.

Early food processing techniques were limited by the available food preservation, packaging and transportation. Early food processing mainly involved salting, curing, curdling, drying, pickling and smoking. An example of an early processed food product is cheese.

During the industrialisation era in the 19th century, food manufacturing arose. This development took advantage of new mass markets and emerging new technology, such as milling, preservation, packaging and labelling and transportation. It brought the advantages of prepared time-saving food to the bulk of ordinary people who did not employ domestic servants.

At the start of the 21st century, a two-tier structure has arisen, with a few international food processing giants controlling a wide range of well-known food brands, and a populous number of small local or national food processing companies.

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Answer 10

Food miles

Food miles is a term which refers to the distance food is transported from the time of its production until it reaches the consumer. Food miles are one factor used when assessing the environmental impact of food, including the impact on global warming.

The concept of food miles originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. It was conceived by Professor Tim Lang at the Sustainable Agriculture Food and Environment (SAFE) Alliance and first appeared in print in a report “The Food Miles Report: The dangers of long-distance food transport”, researched and written by Angela Paxton.

Some scholars believe that an increase in the distance food travels is due to the globalization of trade; the focus of food supply bases into fewer, larger districts; drastic changes in delivery patterns; the increase in processed and packaged foods; and making fewer trips to the supermarket. At the same time, most of the greenhouse gas emissions created by food have their origin in the production phases, which create 83% of overall emissions of CO₂.

A range of studies compare emissions over the entire food cycle, including production, consumption, and transport. These include estimates of food-related emissions of greenhouse gas 'up to the farm gate' versus 'beyond the farm gate'. In the UK, for example, agricultural-related emissions may account for approximately 40% of the overall food chain (including retail, packaging, fertilizer manufacture, and other factors), whereas greenhouse gases emitted in transport account for around 12% of overall food-chain emissions. The goal of environmental protection agencies is to make people aware of the environmental impact of food miles and to show the pollution percentage and the energy used to transport food over long distances. . Researchers are currently working to provide the public with more information.

The concept of "food miles" has been criticised, and food miles are not always correlated with the actual environmental impact of food production.

The concept of food miles is part of the broader issue of sustainability which deals with a large range of environmental, social and economic issues, including local food. The term was coined by Tim Lang (now Professor of Food Policy, City University, London) who says: "The point was to highlight the hidden ecological, social and economic consequences of food production to consumers in a simple way, one which had objective reality but also connotations." Food that is transported by road produces more carbon emissions than any other form of transported food. Road transport produces 60% of the world's food transport carbon emissions. Air transport produces 20% of the world's food transport carbon emissions. Rail and sea transport produce 10% each of the world's food transport carbon emissions.

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