Brief survey of food technologies and biotechnologies facing food availability, accessibility, and adequacy

It is well known that 20-30% of food production is lost along the agri-food chain as well as the global human population is expected to rise up to 9 billion people by 2050. The average food waste ranges from 13 to 91 kg/capita/year in households, food services, and retail. Recent estimates suggest that 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with the disposal of food waste. Uncertainty in the food production and its distribution across the world is one of the issues responsible for undernutrition. On the other side, developed countries have to face an increasing number of overweight and obese people. Thus, social policy addressed to food security and the research and technological efforts to extend food shelf life and recover nutrients from food waste and by-products have the goal to reduce food uncertainty across the food chain. Here, we outline the application of different non-thermal technologies, such as pulsed and UV-light, high power ultrasounds and high-pressure processing, thermo-sonication, microwaves pulsed electric fields and advanced oxidation processes, and biotechnologies, largely represented by lactic and acetic fermentation, to extend food shelf-life as well as to recover bioactive compounds from by-products and wastes of the food chains The new strategies aimed at exploiting health benefits of specific phytochemicals extracted from these sources, that in some cases are pursued within academic-enterprise networks in the frame of national and European projects, are also briefly reported. Keywords: food security;food waste; reduce; reuse; recycle; shelf-life;bioactive nutrients