FPE-21306 Food Production and Preservation

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Assumed knowledge on:

FPE-10808 Food Production Chains and FPE-20806 Mathematical Concepts for Food Technology.

Continuation courses:

FPE-20306 Food Engineering.

Contents:

This course will give a description of food production and preservation technologies that are relevant to the food industry. The course includes: food production methods, traditional preservation processes, fluid flow, thermal preservation kinetics and methods (heating, cooling, freezing) as well as novel preservation technologies. Important processing principles (such as residence time, heat transfer) and the consequences for products (shelf life and product quality) will be discussed for various processes and products.

Learning outcomes:

After successful completion of the course students are expected to be able to:
- interpret the schematic production methods of a variety of foods and identify why particular steps in the production are needed;
- identify and quantify the different methods of food preservation (traditional, conventional and emerging methods) and their applications;
- use principles from fluid dynamics, reaction kinetics, reactor engineering, heat transfer and various emerging preservation technologies;
- apply calculations that allow quantitative prediction of the degree of preservation and belonging energy requirements;
- analyse the relation between the treatment of products and the changes in texture, depending on their constituents and the specifics of the treatment;
- execute practical experiments, process the results of the analyses and perform calculations that give insight in required processing/preservation treatments for a range of products.

Activities:

The course consists of three different activities: lectures on theory, tutorial with exercises and a practical. The practical is compulsory part of this course.
- Lectures: In the lectures you will be introduced to the theory but also to practically applied processes, and the ensuing properties of the products, while exercises (during tutorials) will deepen the understanding of how to use the instruments to design the combination of product and process.
- Tutorial sessions: Exercises and cases will be made and discussed during the tutorials, which will offer a hand-on understanding allowing the student to design products and production processes with the required quality. Students can make the interactive exercises independently (or with other students). The answers to the exercises are available. Besides, most digital exercises can be made using a step-by-step approach in which additional explanation is included. In plenary tutorial sessions questions from students will be discussed. The tutorials are scheduled in PC-rooms, where assistants will be available for additional explanation.
- Practical: During the practical (a mandatory part of the course), the students will be introduced to the various preservation methods and related processes that were earlier discussed in the lectures and tutorials. These experiments will illustrate how the processes can be used to obtain the right quality of products with different properties. In all experiments various measurements will be performed and analytical data will be collected. After performing several prescribed experiments, students should process the results of the experiments, do various calculations, and answer related questions. Each experiment and its belonging calculations and questions will be discussed with the supervisors in an evaluation session.

Examination:

In the exam all study materials of the lectures, the tutorials and the practical are assessed. Full participation in the compulsory practical is a prerequisite for taking the exam. In the exam, both theory and applications with calculations will be assessed. The learning outcomes of the practical are also assessed in the written examination.
The exam will be taken as a computer exam, consisting of multiple choice questions and questions of the type true/false.

Literature:

The reader will be available via the WUR-shop. Lecture notes, digital interactive exercises and notes of tutorial sessions will be shared via Blackboard.