Nanofood Process Technology: Insights on How Sustainability Informs Process Design

Sustainabilitylearning from conventional food process technologiesinforms nanofood process technologies. Nanostructured products are an actively growing areafor food research,but there is little information on the sustainability of processesused to make these products. In this Review, we advocate for selectionof sustainable process technologies during initial stages of laboratory-scaledevelopments of nanofoods. We show that selection is assisted by predictivesustainability assessment(s) based on conventional technologies, includingexploratory ex ante and "anticipatory"life-cycle assessment. We demonstrate that sustainability assessmentsfor conventional food process technologies can be leveraged to designnanofood process concepts and technologies. We critically review emergingnanostructured food products including encapsulated bioactive moleculesand processes used to structure these foods at laboratory, pilot,and industrial scales. We apply a rational method via learning lessons from sustainability of unit operations in conventionalfood processing and critically apportioned lessons between emergingand conventional approaches. We conclude that this method providesa quantitative means to incorporate sustainability during processdesign for nanostructured foods. Findings will be of interest andbenefit to a range of food researchers, engineers, and manufacturersof process equipment.