Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The annual meeting was held at the Wells Conference Center of the University of Maine. The opening mixer was held in the evening of October 14 at the hotel lobby followed by dinner. The Main event started on October 15. The meeting started with welcome and opening remarks by Dr. Fred Servello, who is the dean of the college of natural sciences, forestry, and agriculture. Afterwards, Dr. Hongda Chen provided ‘Washington update’ over a webinar. Station reporting commenced after and were delivered alphabetically. In the afternoon, Dr. Caitlin Howell (Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering) presented a guest lecture on ‘bio-inspired slippery surfaces’.   Subsequently, the attendees went on a campus tour of Aquaculture Research Facilities and Advanced Structures and Composites center. Later Dr. Sudhir Sastry provided information on Society of Food Engineering. In the evening, the participants met for dinner and ad-hoc committees also met at that time. On October 16, ad-Hoc committees presented their reports followed by discussion around continuation of some of the committees and formation of new sub-committees. Subsequently, remaining station reports were presented followed by discussion on the ‘project re-write’. The meeting concluded at approximately 12 noon on October 16, 2018. Detailed minutes are available upon request.

The project has four objectives. Individual stations have continued to work on each of the four objectives and detailed accomplishments of individual stations are available upon request. In this report, we showcase collaborative accomplishments in each of the objectives.   

1. Characterize multi-scale physical, chemical and biological properties of food, biological and engineered materials

Georgia and Missouri stations collaborated to characterize particle size, rheological properties, and digestion of nanocellulose in human GI tract

Georgia station also collaborated with Nebraska station to determine dielectric properties of several food materials comparing two different technique of measurement: parallel plate method and open-ended coaxial probe method

Idaho station collaborated with Utah and New Jersey stations to study solid fat wear, with a goal of relating wear behaviors to processing ability/behaviors

Multiple stations (Missouri, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Wisconsin, California, and Wisconsin) collaborated on a project focused on determining inter-laboratory variation through characterization of selected properties of salad dressing

Michigan and Indiana stations developed a novel device for rapid estimation of temperature-dependent thermal properties

2. Develop new and sustainable technologies to transform raw materials into safe, high quality, health enhanced and value added foods through processing, packaging and preservation

Oregon station evaluated the utilization of radio frequency technology for drying and pasteurizing hazelnuts in collaboration with Washington Station and studied technologies for creating value from byproducts in the Oregon beverage industry

Illinois and Washington Stations formed a new collaboration in the area of three fluid nozzle for encapsulation systems and particle structure design

Texas station collaborated with Michigan and Illinois stations in the area of improved technologies to enhance foods quality with emphasis on non-thermal technologies and fresh fruits and vegetables

Mississippi station collaborated with USDA-ARS to conduct extraction of proteins, including myofibrillar proteins and collagen from the by-product of catfish fillet processing

New Jersey, Maryland and California stations collaborated on understanding bacterial attachment and detachment on fresh produce and develop new decontamination technologies that can replace chlorine and other conventional sanitizers to enhance fresh produce safety.

California station collaborated with Michigan station to determine Salmonella inactivation in foods with varying properties during simulated digestion.

New York station collaborated with Maine and Colorado stations to evaluate the quality and shelf-life of a variety of High Pressure treated seafood and meat products

New York station collaborated with New Jersey station to investigate pressure-induced structural changes of proteins by high pressure processing (HPP) that can open up interesting opportunities for the creation of unique structures and novel textures, particularly in high concentration protein systems.

Collaborative research performed by Illinois and Washington stations provided a better understanding of the influence of temperature fluctuation during storage and distribution on quality of frozen potatoes. The findings may inform improved package design, storage and transportation strategies to minimize quality changes in frozen potatoes.

3. Develop mathematical models to understand, predict and optimize for safe and improved quality of foods, and to enhance consumer health

Illinois station studied ice crystallization during freezing of foods in collaboration with Washington station using Hybrid Mixture theory.

Ohio station collaborated with New York station to develop mechanistic understanding of contamination of produce during vacuum cooling.

4. Disseminate knowledge developed through research and novel pedagogical methods to enhance student and other stakeholder learning and practice

Maine lead a collaborative multistate research to improve teaching and learning of food processing and food engineering students. Other participant stations included Idaho, Washington, Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia stations. The objective aims to improve student learning by applying advanced evidence-based methods in class, group projects and training to the teaching faculty through workshops.

Texas station in collaboration with New York station completed work on teaching modules for simulation of microbial growth and inactivation for undergraduate and graduate engineering courses.

New Mexico station developed several educational tools in the area of food engineering, safety and quality in collaboration with several land-grant institutions, some of which are NC-1023 members.

Cornell station developed the Simulation Modules to enhance food safety education. The Simulation Module developed at Cornell were used as part of a new lab on Thermal Processing Lab at Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and other stations.

Michigan station collaborated with Georgia, and Nebraska stations to develop and disseminate data, models, and guidelines for validation of low-moisture pasteurization processes

Publications

A complete list of research publications from NC-1023 members is available upon request (Total over 50). Here, we highlight publications that resulted from collaborative activities between members.

1. Krishna Kumar, P., Bhunia, K., Tang, J., Rasco, B. A., Takhar, P. S., & Sablani, S. S. (2018). Thermal transition and thermo-physical properties of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) var. Russet brown. Journal of Food Measurement and Characterization, 12(3), 1572-1580.
2. Mishra, D.K., Dolan, K.D., Beck, J.V., Ozadali, F. 2017. Use of scaled sensitivity coefficient relations for intrinsic verification of numerical codes and parameter estimation for heat conduction. J. Verification, Validation, & Uncertainty Quantif., (2) 031005: 1-7.
3. Muramatsu, Y., Greiby, I., Mishra, D.K., Dolan, K.D. 2017. Rapid inverse method to measure thermal diffusivity of low-moisture foods. J. Food Sci., 82: 420-428.
4. Greiby, I., Mishra, D.M., Dolan, K.D., Siddiq, M. 2017. Inverse method to estimate anthocyanin degradation kinetic parameters in cherry pomace during non-isothermal heating. J. Food Eng. 198: 54-62.
5. Cadesky L, Walkling-Ribeiro M, Kriner KT, Karwe, MV, Moraru CI. 2017. Structural changes induced by high-pressure processing in micellar casein and milk protein concentrates. J Dairy Sci 100 (9):7055-7070.
6. Liu S, Ozturk S, Xu J, Kong F, Gray P, Zhu MJ, Sablani SS, Tang J. 2018. Microbial validation of radio frequency pasteurization of wheat flour by inoculated pack studies. Journal of Food Engineering. 2018 Jan 1;217:68-74.
7. Xu, J., Liu, S., Tang, J., Ozturk, S., Kong, F. and Shah, D.H., 2018. Application of freeze-dried Enterococcus faecium NRRL B-2354 in radio-frequency pasteurization of wheat flour. LWT, 90, pp.124-131

Conference presentations

1. Tan J, Kong F, Hartel R, Martini S, Barbosa-Canovas GV, Vardhanabhuti B, Bornhorst G, Joyner HS. 2018. Inter- and Intra-Lab Factors in Characterization of Salad Dressing Rheological Properties. Poster Presentation. Conference of Food Engineering. Madison, WI. September 10-12.
2. Tan J, Joyner HS. 2018. Modeling the Effect of Solid Fat Type and Crystallization Conditions on the Wear Behaviors of Solid Fats. Oral Presentation. Society of Rheology 90th Annual Meeting. Houston, TX. October 10-14.
3. Linran Wang, Lee Cadesky, Mukund Karwe and Carmen I. Moraru. 2018. High pressure structure engineering of high concentration milk protein systems. Conference of Food Engineering. Minneapolis, MN, September 2018 (invited presentation)
4. haun Sim, Linran Wang, Lee Cadesky, Mukund V. Karwe, and Carmen I. Moraru. 2018. High pressure structure engineering of high concentration food protein systems. IUFoST Congress, Mumbai, India, October 2018 (poster presentation)
5. Kumar, PK., Bhunia, K., Tang, J., Rasco, B., Takhar, PS., Sablani, SS. 2018. Understanding Ice Recrystallization During Frozen Storage and Its Influence on Mechanical Properties of Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) var. Russet Brown, Institute of Food Technologists, Chicago, IL July 15-18
6. Beck, J.V., Mishra, D.K., Dolan, K.D. Utilization of generalized transient heat conduction solutions in parameter estimation.  9th International Conference on Inverse Problems in Engineering. Waterloo, Canada.  05T, May 24th.

Collaborative grants

While individual members of the project have been awarded several competitive grants in 2017-2018, in this section we highlight new and ongoing research and education grants awarded to collaborative projects between member stations.

1. USDA-HEC, $750,000, Enhancing Learning Outcomes in Food Engineering and Processing Courses for Non-Engineers Using Student-Centered Approaches, an education grant between six participating NC-0123 members (Maine, Iowa, Idaho, Virginia, Kentucky, Wisconsin stations), recommended for funding
2. USDA-NIFA, 2018-70020-28860, Infotoons and videos as delivery tools for food safety training (Maine and New Mexico stations)
3. NSF-STTR Phase I (ends 2018). A Device for Rapid Estimation of Temperature Dependent Thermal Properties for Food Processing Systems (Michigan and Indiana Stations)
4. USDA NIFA, award number 2015-68003-23415. $4.7 million. Enhancing Low-Moisture Food Safety by Improving Development and Implementation of Pasteurization Technologies (Michigan, Washington, Nebraska, Georgia stations).