Food Production Chains in Europe: trends and concerns

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Food Production Chains in Europe trends and
concerns Harris N. LazaridesProfessor and
Head, Department of Food Science and
TechnologyAristotle University of Thessaloniki,
Hellas (Lazaride_at_agro.auth.gr)

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Scope of presentation

• Sustainability and Food Aspects dimensions
• FOOD Production
• Globalization driven food production practices
• Non-sustainable production practices and Food
  Safety threats
• Sustainability and GMO Food
• Sustainable food production schemes
• FOOD Processing
• Creating food from raw materials Adding value
• Sustainable food processing packaging
  techniques
• FOOD distribution
• Food labeling and consumer choice
• Emerging tools for Sustainable distribution
• Globalization and food market control

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• Scope of presentation (continued)
• FOOD Handling
• Mishandling of food by consumers and food safety
• Consumer responsibility and the need for training
• FOOD consumption
• Questionable consumption ethics unsustainable
  use of food - The obesity and hunger epidemics
• Food/nutrition education - Preventive medical
  care Corporate (food industry) responsibility

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FOUNDER of the principles of sustainability A??st
?t????, Aristotéles ARISTOTLE 384 - 322 BC Born
in Stageira A Greek philosopher student of
Plato teacher of Alexander the Great
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ARISTOTLE INTRODUCED THE TERM SUSTAINABILITY
SUSTAIN MEANS
1.    To keep in existence keep up maintain or
prolong 2. To provide for the support of
specif., to provide sustenance or nourishment
for 3.    To support from or as from below
carry the weight or burden of 4.    To
strengthen the spirits, courage, etc. of
comfort buoy up encourage 5.    To bear up
against endure withstand 6.    To undergo or
suffer (an injury, loss, etc) 7.    To uphold
the validity or justice of 8.    To confirm
corroborate Source Websters Dictionary of the
American Language
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Sustainable agriculture

• is the practice of farming using principles of
  ecology that is the relationships between
  organisms and their environment.
• It integrates three main goals
• environmental stewardship,
• farm profitability
• prosperous farming communities.

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• Sustainable agriculture
• It has been defined as "an integrated system of
  plant and animal production practices having a
  site-specific application that will last over the
  long term to
• Satisfy human needs for food and fiber
• Make the most efficient use of non-renewable and
  on-farm resources and integrate, where
  appropriate, natural biological cycles and
  controls
• Sustain the economic viability of farm
  operations
• Enhance quality of life for farmers society as
  a whole.

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• SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MEANS
• Respect to Nature cooperation with her
  understanding that man and nature are bound and
  interrelated
• Respect to man and human values (democracy,
  equality, justice, fraternity, cooperation)
• Recognition of the special role of plants as the
  only creatures that bind (create) energy,
  entropy and pollutants (CO2) to create order
  (chemical compounds). All other creatures consume
  energy, produce entropy and pollutants to create
  disorder
• Use of regenerated resources (i.e. regenerative
  agriculture)
• Respect to our roots (heredity), tradition and
  culture (civilization)
• Social control of production, distribution and
  resource management

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• TERMINOLOGY
• Food sovereignty
• Local food movement
• Slow food movement
• Holistic management

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• Food Sovereignty
• the "right of people to define their own food and
  agriculture," in contrast to having food largely
  subject to international market forces.

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• Local food
• (also regional food or food patriotism)
• a principle of sustainability relying on
  consumption of food products that are locally
  grown

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• Local food movement
• a "collaborative effort to build more locally
  based, self-reliant food economies - one in which
  sustainable food production, processing,
  distribution, and consumption is integrated to
  enhance the economic, environmental and social
  health (prosperity) of a particular place
• It is considered as part of the broader
  sustainability movement.

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Slow food

• International movement founded by Carlo Petrini
  (1986)
• Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it
  strives to preserve traditional and regional
  cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds
  and livestock characteristic of the local
  ecosystem.
• Its goals of sustainable foods and promotion of
  local small businesses are paralleled by a
  political agenda directed against globalization
  of agricultural products.
• Slow food unites the pleasure of food with
  responsibilty, sustainability and harmony with
  nature (Carlo Pertini, Slow Food Founder)

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• Holistic Management
• A systems thinking approach to managing land
  resources that
• builds biodiversity,
• improves production,
• generates financial strength and
• improves the quality of life
• for those who use it.

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• Food issues in European countries
• FOOD Production
• Globalization induced food production practices
• Non sustainable production practices and Food
  Safety threats
• Sustainability and GMO Food
• Sustainable food production schemes

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• Globalization leads to
• Increasingly intensified competition need for
  introduction of new, non-sustainable production
  tools (techniques)
• New safety threats of different type and scale
  compared to known ones Limited capacity to
  handle them (food crises)
• Lack of Social Control on food production

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• Intensification and food safety threats in animal
  products
• Antibiotics used as anabolics (growth
  promoters)
• Toxins dioxins, mycotoxins,
• New pathogens BSE (crazy cow disease)

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• Antibiotics used as growth promoters
• Negative effects
• Resistant microorganisms
• Loss of curing power of human antibiotics
• Difficulty or inability to face common diseases
  loss of human lives
• Major problems with children and elderly
• Need for animal feed control - first legislative
  action by Sweeden

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Food Toxins Dioxins

• Belgian chicken 1999
• Contaminated meat-based feeds
• Difficulties to trace back the origin (small of
  raw material used by many feed producers)
• Preventive damage of huge product quantities,
  without prevention of health damages
• Negative impact on food industry reliability
• Consumer scare
• Ethical issue
• The problem was hidden by the Belgian authorities

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• Food toxins - Mycotoxins
• Present in
• Nuts, dry fruits
• Animal feed
• Impact
• Strong carcinogens
• Additive (cummulative action)

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• Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
• (BSE-crazy cow disease)
• Cause
• Meat-based animal feeds from sick animals
  (carcasses) produced under lower (than needed)
  rendering temperatures
• New (unknown) pathogenic agent Prion

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• Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
• Disease characteristics
• Extremely high heat resistance
• Long incubation time
• Limited knowledge about transmittance
• Inability to diagnose before slaughter
• Need for traceability in animal feeds

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• BSE killing power
• Specialist opinion before 1996
• The disease is not transmitted to man
• Facts
• 1996 first certified death
• Up to 2001, 89 certified deaths

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• Food safety threats from
• Plant products
• Pesticide residues
• Nitrites Nitrates
• Toxins - mycotoxins

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• Pesticide residues
• Old problem with new dimensions
• Limited information
• Recent research revealed
• 40 of samples with dangerous residues
• 3 above allowed levels
• 800 chemicals - ?RL only for 73
• Questions
• How are MRLs set?
• What is their practical use?

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• Sustainability and Genetically Modified food
• Crucial issues
• Quality and safety
• Biodiversity
• Bioethics (Patenting genetic resources)
• Impact on the institution of Agriculture
• Impact of food security (food market control)
• Impact on consumer Rights (free, informed choice)
• Social control of food production
• Who is to benefit?

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Switching on production prioritiesHow can we
have safe, quality-food?

• Need to change production priorities, from
• low cost
• acceptable quality
• questionable safety
• into
• high safety
• satisfactory quality
• acceptable cost

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• FOOD Processing
• Creating food from raw materials Adding value
• Use of a firmly priced raw material to produce a
  large variety of variably priced foods
• Processing is meant to add
• Stability
• Safety
• Quality
• Convenience
• Acceptance
• Value
• Processing may damage certain quality parameters
• Processing may lower nutritional value

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• Sustainable food processing
• Using simple, straight forward, low energy,
  low-impact processing schemes to produce food
  with superb quality and nutritional value , close
  to that of fresh product
• Additional sustainability aspects
• Promote the use of local raw materials and
  ingredients
• Minimize raw material losses and improve product
  yield
• Minimize use of additives with preference to
  natural ingredients (i.e. oreganon oil)
• Minimize use of water with recovery, recycling
  and process modifications
• Minimize packaging
• Exploit and upgrade waste to produce by-products
• Use renewable energy resources and minimize
  energy demands in food distribution

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• Examples of food processing tools with aspects
  of Sustainability
• Osmotic processing
• osmotic dehydration of solid and liquid food
• osmo-dehydrofreezing)
• New product possibilities (i.e. premium quality
  juices, frozen fruits)
• Membrane processing
• High Pressure Processing (HPP)
• Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF)
• Ultrasonics
• Safety considerations!!!

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• Sustainable Food packaging
• smart packaging slow release of antimicrobials
  oxygen or moisture scavengers to control
  packaging atmosphere
• active (live) packaging materials plastics or
  edible coatings with competitive microbial
  culture to protect a sensitive product, i.e. meat

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Sodium caseinate films containing a protective
culture of L. sakei
A Na-caseinate membrane was developed with the
incorporation of viable cells of L. sakei
( 106 cells/cm2 )
LIVE - Packaging
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Sodium caseinate films containing a protective
culture of L. sakei
Growth of L.monocytogenes in TSA medium (TSA) on
contact without contact of the antimicrobial
films (storage at 5 ?C)
LAB
L.monocytogenes
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• Sustainability in food distribution
• Actual shelf life strongly depends on
  time-temperature history of product exposure in
  distribution chain
• FIFO (First In First Out) principle can prove
  very wrong
• Need to continuously monitor actual shelf life
• Time Temperature Indicators/Integrators (TTI,s )
• Tools to protect distribution chains against
  malpractices that would lead to safety problems
  (loss of lives) and/or financial image damages
  from product recalls

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• What is a TTI and how does it work?
• Time Temperature Integrator (TTI)
• Shows spent or remaining shelf life

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Commercial TTI prototype
90 hours at 10 oC
Before Activation
Activation
0 hours
At activation, culture and substrate are mixed by
mechanically breaking the barrier that separates
the two compartments
two separate compartments in the form of plastic
mini-pouches with the lyophilized culture and the
medium with the chromatic indicator
Microbial growth causes lactic acid production
and the pH drop is translated in a colour change
of the pH indicator from red to bright yellow
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Development Of A Microbial Time-Temperature
Integrator
Microorganism
Lb. sakei LQC 1089
Substrate
NB YE 0.5 w/v glucose 2 w/v
(pH 6.2-6.3)
Chromatic chemical Indicator
Chlorophenol Red CPR
Chlorophenol Red CPR, 1.5 v/v of 0.2 w/v in
NaOH
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Sustainability in food distribution chain Other
TTI possibilities Time Temperature
Indicators Indicate the trespassing of a
temperature limit Examples Frost damage of
fresh vegetables at Tlt 0 C Freeze/thaw damage of
frozen products at Tgt -18C
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• Sustainability in food distribution
• Food labeling and consumer choice
• Fundamental consumer right
• freedom of choice based on adequate, informative
  labeling
• US-EU dispute over obligatory labeling of GMO
  food
• Nutrition and health information on packaged and
  non-packaged food consumers awareness of what
  they eat and its health impact

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Sustainability in food distribution
Globalizatinon and food market control

• Remember that Globalization leads to
• Intensive competition for distant (global)
  markets the need to use non-sustainable
  production tools
• As a result, we have new safety threats of
  different type and scale compared to known ones
  Limited capacity to handle them (food crises)
• Lack of Social Control of food production/distribu
  tion
• Food market control is concentrated in huge
  formations

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Oligopolies in food market control
With 120 billion in annual revenues, Cargill is
bigger than the economies of more than two-thirds
of the world's countries, including Kuwait, Peru
and Vietnam. Its sales exceed those of Disney,
Kraft Foods and PepsiCo -- combined -- and it is
nearly twice as large as its next closest
competitor, Archer Daniels Midland.
(http//www.oligopolywatch.com/)
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Oligopolies in food market control

• Food market control is passing in fewer hands,
  with low respect to human values or the
  environment
• Small size agribusinesses are gradually (but
  certainly) being driven to extinction
• The food system is so centralized that, when a
  food crisis hits, we are less able to react

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Essential purpose of food, is to nourish people
and support life. With food oligopolies
however, food is used to control economies and
human lives
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• FOOD handling by the consumer
• Mishandling of food by consumers and food safety
• Consumer responsibility and the need for training

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Mishandling of Food by the consumer will easily
cancel every effort and achievement of the Food
Industry with respect to quality, nutritional
value and safety (i.e. milk refrigeration study)
thus canceling the positive impact of valuable
achievements in food research that is the impact
of our own work as food scientists!Consumer
training can be more efficient than any other
intervention towards improved food safety

• Consumer responsibility for quality safety

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• Sustainability in FOOD consumption
• Questionable consumption ethics unsustainable
  use of food
• The obesity and hunger epidemics
• Corporate (food industry) responsibility

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Western style of eating results in

• Low intake of
• Fiber
• Antioxidants
• Essential fatty acids (i.e. ?-3, ?-6)
• Trace elements
• Vitamins

• High intake of
• Calories
• Sugar
• Salt
• Animal Fat
• ?rans fatty acids
• Cholesterol

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Western type diseases

• Obesity
• Diabetes mellitus
• Hypertension
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Anemia
• Osteoporosis
• Cancer

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Obesity statistics (www.iotf.org )
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What is obesity?

• Obesity is a
• modern, epidemic, devastating disease
• largely due to wrong (unsustainable) consumption
  habits

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Wrong eating habits are due to

• Lack of nutrition and food education
• Lack of time - Convenience (fast food, TV
  dinners,..)
• Entertainment (junk food, soft drinks,
  alcohol,..)
• Consumerism (over-consumption, wasting)
• Fashion and style (consumer programming)
• Deterioration of the family fabric (crisis of
  values)
• Devaluation of the importance of tradition

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How can we correct our eating habits?

• Improve Food and Nutrition Education at School
• Improve public awareness (radio, TV, media)
• Improve preventive medical care (prevention vs
  curing Medical education?)
• Carry out clinical nutrition studies
• Establish nutrition policy (State, Federal)
• Apply understandable nutritional labeling
• Legislate and enforce corporate responsibility

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Food Nutrition education

• Primary/Secondary School education (canteens?)
• Universities
• Open, seminar days for senior primary junior
  high school students (Pilot program at Aristotle
  U)
• Introductory Food Science Nutrition courses for
  non-food majors
• Medical School nutritional education (preventive
  medicine) so far it is missing

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Corporate (food industry) responsibility

• Study found that companies fail to live up to
  their pledges to cut down on sugar, salt,
  trans-fat, cholesterol, serving sizes, calories
• Producers, retailers and restaurant chains
  accused
• The world's top 25 food companies have not taken
  significant action to improve diets despite their
  claims
• Researchers at City University reviewed the
  companies' policies on nutrition, research and
  development, marketing, labelling and other
  criteria relating to health
• Tuesday April 4, 2006, The Guardian
  www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1746169,00.html

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• "Their performance is by and large pathetic.
• The companies that appear to be doing the most
  are the ones under intense pressure because their
  product ranges are the unhealthiest, but there is
  a whiff of desperation about what they are doing
  rather than long-term commitment to better food."
  
• Tim Lang, one of the authors of the report
• The Food Industry Diet, Physical Activity and
  Health. "

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Company digest

• Out of 25 companies, only
• 5 reported acting on sugar
• 4 reported acting on fat
• 8 reported acting on trans fats
• 10 reported acting on salt
• 2 reported acting on portion sizes
• 4 had stated policies on food advertising

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Consumer education A challenge for ISEKI-Food
Net and IFA

• ISEKI-Food Thematic Network, www.esb.ucp.pt/iseki
  /
• One of its main objectives
• Establish communication with the general public
• and the consumers
• ISEKI-FoodAssociation (IFA) (www.iseki-food.net)
  
• Food Info in 14 EU languages www.food-info.net

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Conclusions

• The entire world is suffering from food in one
  way or other
• Developing countries are suffering from lack of
  food (hunger)
• Developed countries are suffering from wrong use
  of food and lack of food (obesity and hunger)
• Citizen - Consumer education is needed to correct
  eating habits and fight obesity/diet diseases
• Questionable production ethics put food safety at
  a high risk

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• Globalization, GMOs, biofuel production pose
  severe threats to world food security
• Sustainability is a major issue in all stages of
  food production, processing, distribution and
  consumption
• Our society needs to meet a big challenge Secure
  access to Safe Food and Healthy eating for All

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Thanks for your kind attention!!!
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Parthenon from SW (finished 438 BC)