Food systems

Food System Research, developing research to support Food Innovation Trends (FIT)  

Development of our research

The following consultancy projects were carried out by the Centre for Food Innovation between 2008-2009, they have provided an overview of most supply chain issues associated with food and beverage production.  This experience has been developed for resource footprinting research where we are aiming to map the costs, benefits, impacts of food supply, manufacture and retailing using Life Cycle Analysis and footprinting methodologies.

Packaging for luxury puddings developed a clear understanding of redesigning existing packaging to provide fit for purpose packaging that provides higher visibility and lower environmental impact.
Independent restaurants and supply chains highlighted the requirement for training and awareness of local food and environmental issues in the service sector.
Effective waste management in food manufacturing provided a dataset that can now be used to determine where waste is produced, what volumes are produced and how they might be reduced by utilising knowledge of co-product formulations.
Using coproduct to add value in food manufacturing developed our understanding of using co-products as feedstocks for novel foods, fuels and chemicals.
Plant sourced omega fatty acid performance focussed our understanding of adding value to foods using ingredients that provide high impact health solutions for consumers.
Carbon footprints for the food and beverage supply chain provided our first studies of specific products and their resource footprints.
Sulphite preservative removal with confidence highlighted our understanding of manufacturing processes and the provision of solutions that can create 'clean label' processing and add environmental value.

Improving sauce performance provided strength to our understanding of the manufacturing environment and how technologies and sensors can be used to provide efficiency improvements.
Tracing GM ingredients in food and beverage products provided a greater understanding of tracing food products in supply chains and manufacturing environments.

  
Developing food industry carbon dialogue

Our recent research on carbon accounting and carbon footprinting is now being presented to industrial platforms by the Dr Wayne Martindale.  We are currently extending our carbon footprint research to mapping supply chains and resource use within them.  an example of this research has been published by Dr Wayne Martindale and uses the potential conflicts between biofuel and bakery supply chains as the basis for the investigation.  This study was carried out for the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward in 2009.  The currently available study summarises initial research and consultancy was published in 2009 and it is available here.  This study includes carbon, water and land footprint assessments of supply chains for wheat.

Carbon and supply chain innovation

A further development of integrating carbn footprint research with spatial studies and Geographoc Information Systems is reported in the report on supply chain led innovations by Dr Wayne Martindale.  This research now places us in a position to calculate the carbon and resource footprint of food sectors such as meat, dairy, vegetables and specific towns and cities.