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Reducing the use of highly-refined ingredients: the pros and cons
Professor Vincenzo Fogliano of Food Quality & Design shared his thoughts on food processing and formulation as part of the #FoodFuture project on platform Food Drink Europe. They spoke with Fogliano to understand the basics of food processing and how it contributes to achieving more sustainable food systems.
‘One of the biggest steps companies can take is to reduce the use of highly-refined ingredients (e.g. highly-refined sugar and grains). By using less refined ingredients, we can reduce costs in some cases (such as energy) whilst also improving health outcomes. Increasing the use of less-refined ingredients can lead to greater difficulty in controlling the process, so it can be a double-edged sword for manufacturers, but certainly not something that can’t be handled with modern food processing techniques. This of course also requires a change in the consumer’s tastes and mentality.’