208-228 Waste Management and Use

208-216 Food Microbiology

Food production is increasingly concerned about minimising losses in production and processing, using all parts of starting materials as primary food products or composites, and extracting all valuable components in agricultural or processing by-products, including water for re-use. This includes developing new products that may have use in alternative sectors, including as pharmaceuticals, fuels, food and feed additives or as chemicals for a variety of different manufacturing sectors. The type of technologies that are applied to achieve waste minimisation and utilisation may rely on extraction, concentration, chemical modification or biological conversion via fermentation, or combinations of these approaches. This subject will explore the technologies involved in loss minimisation through case studies on processing specific commodities and where efficiencies are generated through waste management and use.

On completion of this subject, students should be able to:

• describe current and future technologies for minimising waste during food production, from farm to plate;

• understand the fate of materials across food production and product delivery, including flow into supply chains outside the food industry;

• describe concepts of water management and process design in context of processing specific agricultural commodities, particularly during processing, storage and delivery of food products;

• source information and prepare case studies on examples of good and bad practices in waste management;

• work alone and in groups in presenting information for discussion; and

• prepare reports and present these in written and oral form.

One 2-hour examination (50% of final marks), one assignment, maximum 3000 words (20% of final marks), preparation of practical and site visit reports (20% of final marks), oral presentation of case studies (10% of final marks)