Examples for solutions and projects from the partner institutes

Better estimation of overall burdens of humans, animals and the environmment by perfluoroalkyland polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Due to their unique properties perfluoroalkyl- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are widely utilised in specialty chemistry as well as in consumer products of any kind. The extreme stability of PFAS leads to their accumulation in the environment and organisms.

The identification of animal species in meat and meat products is of great importance in the context of quality assurance for both the food and feed processing industries, particularly following the UK outbreak of BSE. Current methods are unable to achieve the necessary requirements, as they often cannot verify the presence of animal material in food and feed...

Modern food production involves many complex processes that need to be controlled to ensure food safety and food quality. The proliferation of national and international guidelines, ordinances and laws on food quality and safety means that stricter controls through governmental agencies and/or in-house quality assurance systems (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, HACCP-concept) are required...

Tea e.g. promises enjoyment and well-being; this is confirmed by an annual consumption of approximately 17.000 t/year in Germany. To ensure this enjoyment, it must be processed to meet the highest quality requirements.

It looks like a cutlet, it‘s juicy and fibrous like a cutlet, and it even chews with the consistency of a real cutlet – but the ingredients are 100 percent vegetable. Researchers are using a new method to prepare a meat substitute that not only tastes good, but is also environmentally sustainable...

Vegan and vegetarian foods are becoming ever more popular. Their market share is increasing and this is opening new growth opportunities for the food sector. Many vegan food products utilize plant proteins. Key quality criteria of plant proteins are their biological value and digestibility.

Summer, sun and a BBQ grill. Just when you think you picked a good looking steak from out of the meat case, you slap it on the grill and it shrivels up to half its size in seconds flat. To make matters worse, it’s as tough as an old sneaker.  Preparing a tender steak has less to do with the roasting method than with the meat itself.

From UV to NIR: Sorting Systems that Use the Entire Visual Spectrum. Not only do we naturally expect to buy inexpensive food at the supermarket, but we also tend to assume it is being sold at the highest quality possible.

In summer it is especially big again: The desire for freshness! Salad, fruit, vegetables - preferably practically pre-cut from the refrigerator. Together with freshly grilled fish and meat, a light menu for hot days is quickly conjured up. So that the enjoyment is not subsequently clouded by illnesses…

The first step to preserving milk products is to kill some, if not all, of the natural microorganisms that the milk contains. This is done by heating the milk at high temperatures. This preservation process changes depending on the time-temperature profile.

When it comes to quality, consumers make very high demands: They want ready-to use, pre-portioned foods that will remain fresh and retain their attractive appearance for days. This is particularly true as regards meat and cold cuts. However, while freshly slaughtered meat is virtually sterile, it generally becomes contaminated with microorganisms - feces from hides and skins, germs on tools, hands or in rinsing water - during subsequent cutting and processing stages...

The demand for natural food products with a high degree of freshness is continuously growing. At the same time, distribution networks are becoming more and more extensive meaning that ever higher requirements are being put on the quality and shelf-life of food products.

The traceability of food or sensitive goods as pharmaceuticals becomes increasingly important, especially in times of globalized markets. With modern technology, production and logistic within the food industry can be monitored, documented and controlled efficiently and completely. Sensors play a major role..

Milk, quark and cheese are part of the daily food intake. How energy, water and carbon dioxide emissions can be saved in the production of such foodstuffs is what the just recently started EU Project SUSMILK shows. Under the leadership of Fraunhofer UMSICHT, 21 project partners are developing components that contribute to the sustainable processing of milk and a redesign of the dairy industry via their use in existing dairy infrastructures.

The project BioSuck aims at establishing a decision support system (DSS) that forces a redesign of the food processing industry with regard to an optimized waste collection system. This shall work via vacuum lines and subsequent processing of concentrated waste into bioenergy or recycling of nutrients.

Plants are the common beginning of the food chain for humans and animals. The increasing use of cultivable land for the production of bioenergy is a growing challenge for seed producers and breeders...

From UV to NIR: Sorting Systems that Use the Entire Visual Spectrum. Not only do we naturally expect to buy inexpensive food at the supermarket, but we also tend to assume it is being sold at the highest quality possible.

Tea e.g. promises enjoyment and well-being; this is confirmed by an annual consumption of approximately 17.000 t/year in Germany. To ensure this enjoyment, it must be processed to meet the highest quality requirements...

The traceability of food or sensitive goods as pharmaceuticals becomes increasingly important, especially in times of globalized markets. With modern technology, production and logistic within the food industry can be monitored, documented and controlled efficiently and completely.  

The traceability of food or sensitive goods as pharmaceuticals becomes increasingly important, especially in times of globalized markets. With modern technology, production and logistic within the food industry can be monitored, documented and controlled efficiently and completely.  

In typical industrial cherry depitting machinery approximately 100-150 cherries are depitted simultaneously with a cycle time of 1-2 seconds. Depitting is not always successful though, so it is possible for a part of a pit to remain inside the cherry. Eating a cherry with a partial pit remaining in the fruit can result in personal injury of the consumer. To minimize this risk, the depitting process can be monitored, and not successfully depitted cherries removed from the product stream.

The traceability of food or sensitive goods as pharmaceuticals becomes increasingly important, especially in times of globalized markets. With modern technology, production and logistic within the food industry can be monitored, documented and controlled efficiently and completely.