This chapter presents various strategies for damage reduction to food products during transportation and handling. Packaging plays a key role in protecting the product from contamination by external sources and reducing damage during its transportation and handling in the supply chain from the producer and manufacturer to the consumer. Packaging is defined as all products made of any materials of any nature to be used for the containment, protection, handling, delivery, and presentation of goods, from raw materials to processed goods, and from the producer to the user or the consumer. Containment attributes to the containment of the product for handling, transportation, and use. Protection, relates to protecting the contents from deterioration due to physical and climatic changes during normal transportation and storage. This could mean protecting the product from shock (drops) and vibration (transportation) by using cushioning. It could also mean using a high-barrier film to prevent oxygen and moisture from entering a package and causing spoilage to a food product. The protection function also relates to protecting the outside environment from contamination by the contents, especially if they are hazardous materials. Food is transported from producers to packing houses or processing plants and from processors to retail markets. Throughout the shipping stage, food products need to be carefully loaded and protected to prevent damage from a wide assortment of potential hazards. Loads need to be positioned accordingly to efficiently fit inside the transportation containers and to remain stable.

This chapter focuses on various food drying and evaporation processing operations. Drying, or dehydration, is used to remove relatively large amounts of water from foods and is accomplished by imposing a difference in water activity between the food and its surroundings. Evaporation is used to concentrate liquid foods as water in the food reaches the boiling point and escapes into the surrounding atmosphere. Most common dehydration processes use hot air as the drying medium. The air delivers heat to the product to evaporate moisture. In addition, the air must have a lower water activity, as compared to the food, in order for moisture to move from the food into the surrounding air. A wide variety of unit operations exist to dry food products, which may be classified loosely as hot air dryers, freeze dryers, and osmotic dryers. Hot air dryers are perhaps the most widely used of food dryers, in which air is drawn in by a fan and passed across a bank of heaters. Freeze drying is a unique means of dehydration in which water is sublimated directly from the solid to the gaseous state. As there is no liquid state during the course of drying, the food structure remains solid and immobile; therefore, it does not experience the type of shrinkage found with hot air drying. In addition, as drying occurs at relatively low temperature, there is less impact on flavor, color, and nutrients.

The filling machine is usually the most important machine in a food packaging line. The filler measures out a specific quantity of a food product and it places that metered quantity of the food product into a package. The machine may also perform other functions such as making the package and closing the package. Volumetric fillers deliver a measured volume of product into each container. Volumetric systems are flexible and can be adapted to a wide variety of products, ranging from water to thick pastes or powders and other dry products. Piston fillers are the most common type of volumetric filler, which measure and deliver the product by the action of a single piston. Weight filling is used for products that do not have uniform density and for products that require more accurate metering. Rotary fillers remove the empty containers from the infeed conveyor and place them on the rotating turret of the filler. As the containers travel around the periphery of the filler, they are filled and then placed on to the outfeed conveyor. Vertical form-fill-seal machines are widely used to package a vast array of food products, including dry cereals, granular sugar, cake mixes, and flour..

This chapter focuses on vegetable and fruit processing. Fruit and vegetable processing systems can be broadly categorized into three classes, based on the scale of processing. Small-scale processing is done at the cottage industry level by small-scale farmers for personal subsistence or for sale in nearby markets. Intermediate-scale processing is based on the technology used by small-scale processors with differences in the type and capacity of the equipment used. The raw materials are usually grown by the processors themselves or are purchased on contract from other farmers. Intermediate-scale processing can provide quantities of processed products to urban areas. Large-scale processing is highly mechanized and requires a substantial supply of raw materials for economical operation. This system requires a large capital investment, high technical and managerial skills, and regular supplies of adequate quantities of raw materials. The choice of processing system depends entirely on the type of industry and the extent of infrastructure for growing, transport, manpower, technology, and other resources available in different countries as well as the marketing opportunities for the products processed. Harvested vegetables are highly perishable and need careful handling and storage conditions to maintain quality. Lowering the temperature of the storage room and being able to transfer crops as rapidly as possible to such storage can help delay death. Cool storage can also help reduce water loss due to a reduction in evaporation and transpiration, but control of relative humidity is also necessary. Storage life can be increased by changing the atmosphere of the store from the normal atmosphere of 79% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 0.03% carbon dioxide to predetermined concentrations in which the level of oxygen is reduced and carbon dioxide is increased.

This chapter focuses on some of the advances made in the field of farm machinery automation. Agricultural mechanization started with the steam powered reapers and traction engine, and then advanced with the invention of mobile hydraulics and electronic control systems that are used in modern machinery currently. These systems can be combined with various sensor systems, including Global Positioning System (GPS), to help guide and automate the vehicles to improve their efficiency, reduce crop damage, and improve crop yields through better cultural practices. The four different classifications of vehicle guidance systems include manual, operator assisted, semi-autonomous, and fully-autonomous guidance systems. Manual systems use an operator to steer the machinery based on their perception of the environment. Operator-assisted guidance systems use a sensor, such as GPS, to determine the location of the vehicle and display a visual cue, such as a light bar, indicating that the operator should steer the vehicle left or right based on the measured position of the vehicle. Semiautonomous guidance systems expand on the operator-assisted systems by generating a signal that actually steers the wheels of the vehicle. A fully-autonomous vehicle integrates all aspects of vehicle monitoring and control into a single, autonomous system. Various technologies can be used or combined to provide reliable guidance systems for mobile vehicles. The most common guidance systems use GPS to find the location of the vehicle and provide input to the operator or steering system to guide the vehicle along a desired path. Some forms of guidance systems focus on guiding the vehicle relative to the crop. Machine vision, crop feelers, and furrow followers identify the row or furrow and steer the vehicle to follow the row or furrow, or a parallel path.

This chapter presents an overview of food processing facility design and the various factors that influence it. A new food processing facility design project begins with identification, understanding, and resolution of the key issues, which are classified into three broad categories, including products, economic feasibility, and design. Facility design consists of four major project phases, which include planning and feasibility, conceptual design, preliminary design, and final design. Food processing facility design and construction require a great deal of organized planning. The various factors, which have to be looked at during the planning phase, include issues related to hygiene and sanitation, market demographics, safety and regulatory aspects, and site selection. Economic feasibility is related to return on investment required, cash availability, interest rates and financing, marketing, and budget estimate. Conceptual design of a new food processing facility involves conceiving it in the abstract, based on concrete instances, new knowledge, and visionary thinking. A thorough identification and assessment of the design problem is carried out as the initial task of this phase. Preliminary design supplies the details needed to make the conceptual design into a functioning food processing facility using currently available equipment, materials, and techniques. In final design, all of the documents necessary for facility construction are generated and approved. Bid packages are sent to contractors and suppliers, and subsequent quotations are evaluated by using predetermined procedures.

This chapter focuses on various food regulations in the United States. At the federal level, the primary agencies with regulatory responsibilities are the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), which is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture. The FDA has the responsibility to ensure safety of all foods under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938. The FSIS has primary responsibility for meat, poultry, and egg products under the Meat Product Inspection Act, Poultry Product Inspection Act, and Egg Product Inspection Act. FDA notification is required of any individuals producing low-acid or acidified foods. A process filing may be required for submission, detailing the particulars of the food, packaging, and the proposed process being considered. The FDA has a responsibility to respond with either a non-rejection letter or a letter with additional questions. Additionally, any company that produces or distributes foods has to register with the FDA as required by the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. All meat, poultry, and egg processing plants are required to have a written sanitation program. Sanitation is the creation and maintenance of hygienic and healthful conditions in food processing plants. The FSIS has sanitation requirements for meat, poultry, and egg products in Title 9 Part 416 of the Code of Federal Regulations. In addition, the FDA has developed specific current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) for some food processing such as bottled water, baby food, and seafood.

This chapter focuses on food freezing technology, which has become one of the important unit operations in food processing and preservation. Almost all food products, whether raw, partially processed, or prepared foods, can be preserved by freezing. In the processed foods sector, the consumer preference for frozen food is even higher than that for dried and canned products. This is mainly visible in the case of the meat, fruit, and vegetable sectors. Freezing gives added value and a feeling of freshness to the products. Successful food freezing technology depends on delivering good-quality products to the consumers at a reasonable cost. In prepared foods, maintaining sanitary conditions during preparation and eliminating post-process contamination give a good-quality end product. Accurate prediction of freezing time, selection of energy efficient equipment, proper automation, taking the advantage of freezing aids, such as ice nucleating agents, and tracking the freezing front with MRI can reduce the processing costs. New freezing techniques, such as high-pressure freezing and dehydrofreezing, can be helpful in obtaining better-quality products and in reduction of processing costs. When freezing is done under high-pressure conditions, ice crystal formation is homogeneous both on the surface and in the interior—thereby, minimizing the damage to the tissue. Dehydrofreezing is a modified freezing method generally applied to high-moisture containing foods. These high-moisture containing foods are partially dehydrated prior to freezing, which can be done with conventional air drying or osmotic drying.

Rheology is a field of research that studies flow and deformation, which are encountered in everyday life. This chapter focuses on food rheology, which applies a fundamental approach in unveiling interactions between food components and dynamics of structure formation, and provides parameters in evaluating food quality as well as formulations and processing conditions for optimizing food quality. Rheological data is widely used for designing pipelines to pasteurize milk and beverages, kneading dough, and packaging food slurries. Food products demonstrate various properties, which may be correlated with sensory properties experienced by human beings. Honey is more viscous than cooling oil and water when measured by a rheological instrument and felt by fingertips. Dough is a visco-elastic material as it can return to its original position after a slight deformation but can be kneaded upon extended deformation. Most semi-solid materials are visco-elastic materials whose properties cannot be differentiated based on viscosity alone. Two categories of rheological studies are used to understand visco-elastic materials—small strain (linear) and large strain (including nonlinear and fracture/failure) rheology. In small-strain tests, rheological data is obtained without changing the microstructure of a material. Small strains measurements can be performed by the mode of oscillation, stress relaxation, or creep.

Waste products from food processing facilities include bulky solids, airborne pollutants, and wastewater. All of these cause potentially severe pollution problems and are subject to increasing environmental regulation in most countries. Generally, the wastewater is of most concern as food processing operations involve various unit operations such as washing, evaporation, extraction, and filtration. The process wastewaters resulting from these operations normally contain high concentrations of suspended solids and soluble organics, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, which present difficult disposal problems. Technology to remove major pollutants, such as total dissolved and suspended solids and organic materials in the food processing industry, can generally be classified into physical-chemical, biological, and land treatment. Biological treatment offers a clear method of reducing wastes going to landfills and can lead to the production of valuable products. Biological treatment can be sub-classified into aerobic and anaerobic treatments. Under aerobic conditions, microorganisms convert carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins in wastes into microbial biomass and carbon dioxide. Under anaerobic conditions, wastes containing those components can be digested to yield methane, which can be burned as a fuel source. Agricultural and food processing wastes that contain toxic compounds require physical-chemical treatment, such as settlement, pH adjustment, chemical precipitation, coagulation, reverse osmosis, ionexchange, or adsorption. Cleaning wastewater to a point whereby it can be disposed of on to land or into a receiving stream requires treatment plants that are a mixture of physical-chemical and biological unit processes.