Providing food security to the growing global population, and the resource depletion associated with current food systems, let to calls for more sustainable food sources. Food that can be produced in a sustainable way (taking all three aspects of sustainable development into consideration) is currently emerging in Western societies. Through tastings, insight can be gathered not only into sensory characteristics but also other aspects that aid innovation and development of food. The current study identified aspects that can affect tastings of emerging food by reviewing relevant literature. General aspects; meat alternatives; ingredients or processing technologies; information, prior knowledge and (un)familiarity; taste and liking; emotional factors; and willingness to engage with emerging food can affect tastings of emerging food. Awareness of the effect that these aspects can have on methodological considerations and results can be constructive in future research that use tastings as a platform to develop new and emerging food. The findings are significant for food science in terms of cornerstones towards potential industrial applications. These include innovating new types of food, assessing most effective technologies in the context of such food, developing new products, and understanding engagement with emerging food products.

Biofuels contribute environment-friendly, renewable energy, minimizing dependence on fossil energy. The pretreatment of biomass is a practical step that accelerates and facilitates the hydrolysis of complex materials. This work aimed to screen, select, and study cocktail formulations for biomass hydrolysis, where the enzymes were provided both from a commercial source (Trichoderma reesei, Novozymes®) and through the cultivation of Aspergillus brasiliensis and Aspergillus tamarii Kita. Experimental mixture designs were used to optimize the enzymatic conversion of substrates into simple sugars. A crude extract rich in amylase (AAB) had a significant favorable influence on cornmeal hydrolysis by maximizing the yield of reducing sugars (RS) (173 μmol mL–1). Celluclast™, rich in cellulase, significantly affected the hydrolysis of banana peel, maximizing the RS yield (175 μmol mL–1). Variable degrees of enzyme synergism were evident from statistical analysis of the biomass hydrolysis.

The current study aims to assess how a novel fungi product made from the filamentous fungus Neurospora intermedia, cultivated on bread residuals, is perceived using questionnaires. Participants were asked to rate characteristic attributes of a fungi burger patty and state their preference when comparing it to Quorn and hamburger patties. The data were analyzed to assess whether gender or age was statistically associated with preference profiles. Neither age nor gender was associated with the preference profiles regarding the comparison of burger patties. Except for age and bitterness, age and gender were also not associated with the preference profiles regarding the sensory characteristics of the fungi burger patty. Most of the participants liked the characteristics of the fungi burger patty. The results indicate that fungi products from waste can become accepted products when information dissemination targets environmental benefits. Moreover, to be commercially accepted, the chewiness and bitterness of the product should be improved. Other improvements should target the overall taste in order to cater to people who prefer meat-based protein sources.

This paper quantifies bread waste throughout the Swedish supply chain and investigates the loss rate of prepackagedbread products at the supplier-retailer interface. The goal is to understand the extent of bread waste inSweden and to identify risk factors for high quantities of waste at the supplier-retailer interface, in order toprovide information supporting waste prevention measures. The study uses primary data, in combination withnational statistics and data from sustainability reports and the literature. Primary data were collected from 380stores of a Swedish retail company and a bakery. Bread waste was calculated to be 80 410 tons/year in Sweden,the equivalent of 8.1 kg per person/year, and was found to be concentrated at households and in retail, specificallyat the supplier-retailer interface. The results provide evidence that take-back agreements between suppliersand retailers, where the retailer only pays for sold products and the supplier bears the cost of the unsoldproducts and their collection and treatment, are risk factors for high waste generation. Current business modelsmay need to be changed to achieve a more sustainable bread supply chain with less waste.

The solvent finding step has always been a time-consuming job in chemical-involved processes. The source of difficulty mainly comes from the trial-and-errors, as a repetitive process of chosing solvents and mixing them in different proportions. Computers are good at doing repetitive processes; however, they can only deal with numerical values, rather than qulitative scales. Numerification of qualitative parameters (like solubility) has already been introduced. The most recent one is the Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs). Using the HSPs could provide a solvent or solvent-mixture. In our previous study, we introduced a computer-aided model and a software to find a solvent mixture. In this study, we have used the computer-aided solvent selection model to find some solvent mixtures for polyamide 11, a biobased polymer which has attracted enormous attention recently. Using this numerical model significantly diminished the time of solvent development experimentation by decreasing the possible/necessary trials.

This study was conducted to improve the properties of thin films prepared from orange waste by the solution casting method. The main focus was the elimination of holes in the film structure by establishing better cohesion between the major cellulosic and pectin fractions. For this, a previously developed method was improved first by the addition of sugar to promote pectin gelling, then by the addition of maleic anhydride. Principally, maleic anhydride was introduced to the films to induce cross-linking within the film structure. The effects of concentrations of sugar and glycerol as plasticizers and maleic anhydride as a cross-linking agent on the film characteristics were studied. Maleic anhydride improved the structure, resulting in a uniform film, and morphology studies showed better adhesion between components. However, it did not act as a cross-linking agent, but rather as a compatibilizer. The middle level (0.78%) of maleic anhydride content resulted in the highest tensile strength (26.65 ± 3.20 MPa) at low (7%) glycerol and high (14%) sugar levels and the highest elongation (28.48% ± 4.34%) at high sugar and glycerol levels. To achieve a uniform film surface with no holes present, only the lowest (0.39%) level of maleic anhydride was necessary. 

Solvent selection is a crucial step in all solvent-involved processes. Using the Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs)could provide a solvent/solvent-mixture, but there are two main challenges: 1) What solvents should be selected? 2)From each solvent, how much should be added to the mixture? There is no straightforward way to answer the twochallenging questions. This contribution proposes a computer-aided method for selecting solvents (answer to thequestion 1) and finding the adequate amount of each solvent (answer to the question 2) to form a mixture of 2, 3 or4 solvents to dissolve a solute with known HSPs or to replace a solvent. To achieve this, a sophisticated computersoftware package was developed to find the optimized mixture using the mathematical Simplex algorithm based onHSPs values from a database of 234 solvents. To get a list of solvent-mixtures, polyamide66 was tested using itsHSPs. This technique reduces the laboratory effort required in selecting and screening solvent blends while allowinga large number of candidate solvents to be considered for inclusion in a blend. The outcome of this paper significantlydiminished the time of solvent development experimentation by decreasing the possible/necessary trials. Thus, themost suitable solvent/solvent-substitution can be found by the least possible effort; hence, it will save time and costof all solvent-involved processes in the fields of chemistry, polymer and coating industries, chemical engineering, etc.

Dry anaerobic co-digestion of citrus wastes (CW) with chicken feather (CF), wheat straw (WS) and manure bedded with straw (MS) was investigated in batch and continuous processes. Experiments were designed with different mixing ratios considering the inhibitory effect of CW, C/N ratio, and total solid content of individual feedstocks. Best mixing ratio (CF:CW:WS:MS) of 1:1:6:0, enhanced methane yield by 14% compared to the expected yield calculated according to the methane yields obtained from the individual fractions. The process performance of this mixture was then investigated in continuous plug flow reactors at different organic loading rates (OLR) with feedstock total solid contents of 21% TS (RTS21) and 32% TS (RTS32). At OLR of 2 gVS/L/d, a methane yield of 362 NmlCH4/gVSadded was obtained from RTS21, which is 13.5% higher than the yield obtained from RTS32 (319 NmlCH4/gVSadded). However, it was not possible to achieve a stable process when the OLR was further increased to 3.8 gVS/L/d; there were increased total VFAs concentrations and a decline in the biogas production.