eChapters

Milk, on reception at the dairy factory is subjected to various unit operations on its way to product manufacture. Processing is applied as a means to convert liquid milk into products or to render the milk (and products) safe from harmful organisms. The basic processing operations to which milk is subjected at processing units have been described in this chapter. The common processing operations employed are depicted in Fig. 4.1. Several of these operations are routine compulsory processes common to all dairies, while certain others are undertaken for specialized purposes in some dairies.

4.1. Filtration and Clarification

At the time of milking various foreign materials such as dirt, feed, manure, dandruff, hair, flies, dust particles, worn out cells, cell debris and many other undesirable substances may find their way into milk. The process of removal of this extraneous matter (solid particles of higher density than that of milk) is called filtration or clarification. This can be achieved either by simple filtration through specially woven filter cloth or continuous process of centrifugal clarification that helps

1. FRUIT CROPS

1.1 Physiological Disorders

A wide variety of physiological disorders are found in apple fruit, but the susceptibility varies with variety, pre-harvest factors and post harvest conditions. Disorders can be considered in three categories:

1. Disorders that develop only on the tree: Most important is watercore in which intercellular air spaces in the core and cortical tissues become filled with liquid, Presence of watercore in fruit at harvest creates problems in certain varieties such as ‘Delicious’ because fruit with moderate or severe watercore can develop breakdown during storage.
2. Disorders that develop on the tree and during storage: Bitter pit is a disorder characterized by development of discrete pitting of the cortical flesh. Rapid cooling, CA storage and application of postharvest calcium drenches may be able to reduce its occurrence.
3. Disorders that develop during storage: Senescent breakdown disorders, chilling disorders and disorders associated with inappropriate atmospheres during storage are common disorders. The most common disorders associated with temperature and atmospheres are superficial scald, soft scald, low temperature breakdown, brown core, internal browning, low O2 injury, and high CO2 injury.

Introduction

Fermentation is the process in which edible microorganisms invade food substrates and convert them into fermented foods including beverages, using their enzymatic and metabolic processes. These end products will have nontoxic flavors, aroma and texture which enhance the palatability. The word “fermentation” is originated from a Latin word fermentare, defined as “to leaven” (Frias et al., 2016). It is one of the oldest food processing technologies used by humans to preserve perishable food materials for long time, dated back to ancient human civilization (Hutkins, 2008). Globally, more than 5000 varieties of fermented foods are currently in use which includes traditionally fermented dairy products such as Dahi in India to industrial production of wines from fruits (Tamang, 2010) (Table 1 and Figure 1). Biochemically, fermentation is a metabolic process in which energy is derived from organic compounds without the involvement of an exogenous oxidizing agent. Fermentation may result in the production of many by-products such as carbon dioxide, alcohol, organic acids (lactic acid, acetic acid), vitamins, enzymes etc. which are now having more importance in food industries (Caplice and Fitzgerald 1999).

Abstract

Modern agriculture largely depends on use of high cost inputs and energy intensive farm machinery. Worlds increasing population and continuously deteriorating soil fertility has alarmed agriculture system to look for some safe alternatives. Organic manures are rich source ofnutrients and humans, therefore crop residue recycling by composting is a best alternate of modern high cost input based agriculture. Compost is an aerobically decomposed organic matter .Bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes algae and protozoa are involved in the process of composting and are found throughout the natural environment. The composting material warms up due to microbial activity and it’s temperature becomes up to 160 ⁰F active stage of microbial activity . There are four types of compositing i.e. Windrow composting, Aerated static pile composting, In-Vessel composting and Vermi-composting. The C: N ratio, aeration, temperature and moisture are major factors affecting composting process. Major advantages of composting are: Aggregate formation, Reduction in bulk density, Increase in hydraulic conductivity, Reduction in loss of soil moisture, Increase in organic carbon content and pH of soil.

Abstract

Food dehydration is an oldest method to increase the shelf life of food by reducing the water activity. A dried food product provides advantages of increased shelf life and reduced cost due to decreased weight as well as transportation. However, there is a decrease in product quality due to inadequate control on drying process parameters such as drying temperature and moisture removal together with change in thermo-physical properties of food. Computational modeling and simulations can provide a unique insight on the drying parameters that influences the product quality, and optimize the process conditions which are difficult by experimental analysis. Moreover, the computational techniques are advantageous over experimental optimization methods by minimizing the time and cost. This chapter reviews different computational modeling techniques such as, finite element modeling, finite volume and finite difference methods for modeling of food dehydration process. Also, this chapter describes the application of modeling techniques for determining the influence of shrinkage and porosity during dehydration.

1. INTRODUCTION

Juices and pulps are produced from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables around the world, while some medicinal plants and herbs are also used for preparation of extract of beneficial bioactive compounds. These juices and extracts contain very high proportions (upto 75-90%) of water. Due to their seasonal nature, these products can not be produced round the year in various parts of the world. Preservation, storage, transportation and marketing of single strength juices, pulps and extracts is not at all economical due to the presence of large quantities of water. Under these circumstances, the technology of concentration offers many advantages.

In chemistry, concentration, as a state, may be defined as “the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture” and can be mathematically explained in four types i.e. mass concentration, volume concentration, molar concentration and number concentration. Generally, the term concentration can be applied to any mixture (solid or liquid) but most frequently it refers to the presence of solutes in solvents. Mass concentration is defined as mass/volume (m/V) of mixture and represented in kg/m³, volume concentration as volume of a constituent divided by the volume of all constituents of the mixture (v/V) and represented in m³/m³, molar concentration as moles of a constituent divided by the volume of all constituents of the mixture (n/V) and represented in mol/m³, while, number concentration is defined as the number of entities of a constituent in a mixture divided by the volume of the mixture (N/V) represented in 1/m³.

In food technology or fruit juice industry in particular, concentration refers to a process of separation of water (or any other solvent) from the solids of the pulp, juice, extract by making use of any of the three basic methods i.e. evaporation, freezing and membrane technology. Pulps, juices and extracts are the basic material used for preparation of various types of processed products. But due to their bulk and presence of large quantities of water they are difficult to store and transport. Concentration of juices, not only provides microbial stability, but also reduces the costs of packaging, transportation and storage by reducing the bulk of the material. Concentrated juice, contains far less water than normal, or “not-from-concentrate” forms of juice.

Abstract

Tremendous changes in lifestyle, eating habits and shifting rural habitations are causing an irreversible change that is leading to manifold multiplication of health problems and these health issues have attracted the attention of every segment of the society in the recent past. Today foods are not intended to only satisfy hunger and to provide necessary nutrients for humans but also to prevent nutrition-related diseases and improve physical and mental well-being of the consumers. Due to increasing control over nutrition and health, consumers are becoming more proactive towards their health. In this regard, functional foods play an outstanding role and they are gaining public acceptance and there is great scope for value-added as well as health promoting food products in developing countries. Various terms have used for functional foods throughout the world such as designer foods, medicinal foods, nutraceuticals, therapeutic foods, superfoods, foodiceuticals, and medifoods. People are interested in foods which boost immune system, reduce the risk of diseases and improve health. The increasing demand of such foods can be explained by the increasing cost of healthcare, the steady increase in life expectancy, and the desire of older people for improved quality of their later years. Typically, a food marketed as functional contains added, technologically developed ingredients with a specific health benefit. These range of products cannot be truly classified as ‘food’ and a new hybrid term between nutrients and pharmaceuticals, ‘nutraceuticals’, has been coined to designate them. The development of functional foods involves the application of various food processing techniques such as microencapsulation of functional ingredients for controlled release, nanotechnology for the development of nanostructured (or nanotextured) food ingredients and delivery systems for nutrients and supplements etc. Inclusion of probiotic bacteria and probiotic supplements in various food systems has also become very popular and this is becoming a very vital sector in functional food market. Systematic RandD efforts are, therefore, required to develop health promoting foods for all segments of the society at affordable cost. Prior to promoting the developed health foods, it is of utmost importance to conduct clinical trials to ascertain safety and efficacy, and also establish appropriate regulatory framework for their distribution to masses. All these issues have been discussed in this paper and recommendations were drawn to formulate future research.

Introduction
Understanding the concepts of technology transfer, licensing, and commercialization is crucial as it plays an important role in understanding how scientific discoveries leads to generation of new technologies further making them the impactful solutions that benefit industries and society. In the context of Indian HEIs, this especially important because a large volume of impactful research often remains underutilized due to limited commercialization channels. This chapter explains the terminology, essential components of technology transfer, outlines its significance for the innovation ecosystem. It also outlines the evolution of India’s technology transfer ecosystem, and emphasizes while understanding its potential to boost India’s economy, encourage entrepreneurship, and strengthen global competitiveness. From initial idea to a market-ready product is complex and multiphased process. The stepwise process is shown in Figure 1. It highlights a structured pathway consisting of five core phases: Idea/Concept, Technology development, Intellectual Property (IP) rights, Technology transfer, and Technology commercialisation.
Phase 1: Idea/Concept stage
This process of technology transfer starts with the Idea/Concept phase, where an invention is created. Each phase plays an important role in transforming raw scientific knowledge into innovative solutions that benefit society and generate economic value. In this phase breakthrough ideas emerge, within labs. Researchers explore and develop initial proof-of-concept or prototypes to validate their ideas. At this stage, the focus is primarily on knowledge creation rather than commercialization. This pathway of technology transition is summarized in Figure 1.

a) A Key GDP Contributor: Dairy and Livestock sector form the backbone of agriculture with 28 per cent contribution in GDP and the progress in this sector is dependent on innovative measures to increase the value for farmers as well as customers.

b) Doubling Farmer’s Income : Doubling Farmer’s Income by 2022 can be achieved by improving crop and livestock productivity, efficiency to utilize resources, increased intensity of cultivation and diversification in high value cash crops, processing and value addition of food and animal products. This price realization can be assured through market reforms and efficient market linkages.

c) Unorganised sector – a challenge : The Indian dairy sector is still characterized by strong presence of unorganized sector. Apart from the Cooperative dairy sector, in the last few years there has been a considerable growth in Private Dairy sector and Milk Producers Organization like Maahi in Gujarat. If small dairy farmers are provided with sufficient ‘value addition’ training and support, they can increase their income considerably.

d) Value addition : Further, the milk processing plants can also go for value addition and innovation and in turn pay remunerative prices to milk producers.

Food preservation has evolved from traditional household practices to an interdisciplinary field incorporating microbiology, biochemistry, engineering, biotechnology, packaging, nanotechnology and digital intelligence. The book demonstrates that food stability can increasingly be achieved without excessive reliance on synthetic chemical preservatives. Effective preservation requires control of microbial growth, enzyme activity, oxidation, moisture, temperature and environmental exposure while protecting sensory and nutritional quality. Traditional practices remain scientifically valuable, while thermal, non-thermal, biological, packaging and digital technologies offer new possibilities. Future food systems will depend on carefully designed combinations of these approaches to improve safety, shelf life, sustainability, traceability and consumer acceptance while overcoming cost, regulatory and scalability challenges.

A sustainable and healthy food system is one which can provide food and nutrition security for all, in an economical way which is socially and environmentally sound for future generations. Underutilized indigenous and traditional crops can support and strengthen the existing food system, as they are in particular economical and friendly with the environment. Several underutilized indigenous and traditional crops are nutrient dense and adapted to marginal conditions, suggesting that they could be used to champion sustainable and resilient agriculture and food systems for smallholder farmers residing in these environments. The mainstreaming of underutilized indigenous and traditional crops and foods should be recognized for their attributes to make them desirable and to conserve them. In this regard, the fact that value chains for underutilized indigenous and traditional crops are poorly developed at present has created many opportunities to diversify the current food systems. This will create a new employment, market and distribution opportunities.It will also help to combat poverty. It will be if the smallholder farmers and women in rural areas are given the opportunity to utilize underutilized indigenous and traditional crops and re-enter the manistream system. A significant role which is played by the women for the production and conservation of underutilized indigenous and traditional crops offers opportunities for women empowerment through their inclusion in the food system. Promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women is directly linked for strengthening the sustainable food systems that can fight hunger and malnutrition and improve the lives and livelihoods of rural populations. The mainstreaming of underutilized indigenous and traditional crops into the food system would support women to diversify in a sustainable way, feed their own households and to provide nutritious food into the local markets. This will also help in addressing, the Sustainable

Introduction

Women entrepreneurship in economic development of any nation has been recognised for its significant contribution. The women folk can be considered as backbone of any nation. Now time has come for women empowerment. In rural Odisha, women not only play an important role for agricultural development but also plays significant role in allied agricultural sector such as dairy, fishery, poultry, mushroom production etc. In Indian condition dairy has been considered as “Rural Banking” as it is practiced mostly by majority of the marginal, small and landless farm families for their sustenance and livelihood. The role of rural women for animal husbandry is of paramount importance. In this sector they are managers as well as decision makers. Women do more than 80% dairy operation like cleaning, feeding, milking, marketing of milk and milk products. The state and central government initiate several scheme, programmes and projects for empowerment of women through various micro enterprises including dairy. Against this background a study was undertaken to identify the constraint faced by women entrepreneur in dairy sector in Khordha district of Odisha.

Tea as a Beverage

Tea is the most popular beverage consumed in the world after water. All types of teas including black. green, oolong, white and pu-erh tea are mainly made from the buds and young leaves of tea plants, Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze belongs to the family Theaceae [1]. Depending on the different processing techniques of tea leaves, tea types are categorized as “Green Tea” (unfermented), “Black Tea” (fully fermented), “Oolong Tea” (partially fermented), “Pu-ErhTea” (post fermented) and white tea (unfermented) [2]. The manufacturing process for these different types of teas mainly differ in the degree of enzymatic oxidation (fermentation) process [1].

Introduction

Coffee is a beverage made from the roasted and ground seeds of the African tropical evergreen coffee plant. Coffee is one of the world’s three most popular beverages (together with water and tea), as well as one of the most profitable international commodities, and it is the world’s second most marketed product after petroleum (Myhrvold, 2021).Coffee is a popular beverage that is enjoyed around the world for its taste, health benefits, and ability to enhance physical performance (Simkin, 2008).

SYNOPSIS

Food security is a complex issue, linked to availability and access to food, malnutrition in the population, economic development, environment, and local and global trade. Malnutrition hinders healthy growth and proper development of the human immune system affecting neurological and cognitive development especially in children.

Abstract

Most dryers operate at low thermal efficiency. The development of models and control systems offers an opportunity to improve dryer operation and efficiency. Dryer control is very important and with deeper understanding of the drying concept, new “smart” dryers can be made more reliable and more cost-effective than classical dryers. This chapter will provide an overview of necessity of control and safety measure in food drying system, and terminology related with drying control system. Different control strategy includes conventional and advanced techniques implemented in drying operation are reviewed  here and simple outline of intelligence control system in drying technology are briefly described in succeeding section. Various hazards in drying process and risk and safety management will also be discussed.

Introduction

Perishable nature of horticultural produce is a major factor contributing in high post-harvest losses. The metabolic processes such as respiration, transpiration, and ethylene production remain active after the harvesting of produce, which drive ripening and senescence Fig. 1. Thus, an effective post-harvest handling is crucial to delay these changes. The rate of these processes depends on the produce’s physiological characteristics, composition, and storage conditions like temperature and humidity. Low-temperature storage is the simplest and most efficient method to slow down deterioration Escobedo-Avellaneda and Welti-Chanes, 2016. Combining low temperatures with methods that limit oxygen exposure, which fuels many enzymatic reactions, further extends shelf life and maintains food quality. Reduced oxygen levels decrease respiration and the activity of enzymes like polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase.

Conversion of muscle to meat is a complex process in which several physical and chemical changes takes place over a period of several hours or even days. The major changes which take place during this process include fall in muscle pH and temperature as well as muscle shortening which further leads to proteolysis or ageing. These changes during conversion of muscles to meat are variable and have great effect on meat quality (tenderness, juiciness, flavour, colour etc.) and also on certain processing characteristics like emulsification, binding properties and yield of the products. To know this complex process it is necessary to understand the process of energy production and metabolic pathway shifting in live animals.

Pre Slaughter

In the living animal, aerobic metabolism is used to obtain energy. The source of energy at this stage is either free fatty acids or blood glucose or muscle glycogen. In this process total 38 ATP molecules are produced from single glucose or glycogen molecule by the complex processes known as glycolysis, oxidative decarboxylation and oxidative phosphorylation. However, under stressful situations, anaerobic metabolism may be used and lactic acid is produced. Lactic acid is usually transported from the muscles to the liver, where it is re-synthesized into glucose and glycogen, or to the heart, where it is metabolized to carbon dioxide and water.

Pineapple is one of the most economically important fruits in tropical and subtropical regions and gaining popularity to the consumers all over the world. The pineapple plant has many specific morphological, anatomical and physiological characteristics that determine crucial aspects of pineapple crop management, such as water use efficiency, nutrient management, weed management, flower induction etc.

Water Requirements and Irrigation

Determination of water requirements and plant moisture status: Pineapple plant responds well to as much as 5 cm of water per month from rain or irrigation though it is a xerophyte type and is capable of good production under relatively meager water supply. Maintenance of available soil moisture in the root zone areas requires less water for pineapple than for other crops due to lower transpiration rates. Plants achieve this type of adaptability through a process called assuberization, where suberin act as a physical barrier, preventing water loss from the tissues it surrounds.Stomata remains closed as an effect of drought during the entire day. But, whenever the plants are grown with sufficient moisture in well-aerated soils produced well-distributed roots with numerous white root tips. It helps the water use efficiency and carbon f ixation that pineapple shows to drip irrigation. The pineapple leaf is a major water storage organ for the pineapple plant (Malézieux et al., 1993). When the leaves are full of water the cells present in upper mesophyll layer can occupy almost half of its volume. Invery little water-supply, the water in the mesophyll layer is absorbed by the plant. Generally, representative ‘D’-leaves are taken in a group of six to ten leaves and the total thickness is measured and compared with the thickness of fully turgid leaves.

Introduction

Advances in food preservation methods have supported the journey of food science from that of a cookery science to a fast growing industrial technology. Food preservation knowledge deals with the way to prevent spoilage and maintenance of quality in foods. Spoilage is the deterioration in quality brought about by inherent biochemical and chemical changes, as well as microbial metabolism during food storage. Basic principles of food preservation (Frazier et al., 2008) remains the same, but newer methods for achieving the goal is added through research fuelled by a consumer demand for fresh-like foods with convenience and safety. Scientific information on novel processing methods are beautifully compiled (Cullen et al., 2011; Da-Wen Sun, 2014; Tokuþoðlu and Swanson 2015; Doona, 2018).

In-depth knowledge of physiological activities of micro-organisms in presence of preservation agents is essential for preparation of safe foods with prolonged shelf life. Besides this, it is necessary to understand the effect of food constituents on microbial resistance against inactivation agents, to identify critical dose requirement. This profound knowledge would also help to understand kinetics of microbial inactivation and to develop mathematical models suitable for a realistic design of process parameters. For better appreciation of the following sections, readers are encouraged to have fundamental knowledge in microbiology and food processing. The sections in this chapter cover advanced microbiological knowledge pertaining to the preservation aspects of food.