research studies on food technology

REVIEW article

Insight on current advances in food science and technology for feeding the world population.

• 1 Department of Food and Nutrition, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
• 2 Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

While the world population is steadily increasing, the capacity of Earth to renew its resources is continuously declining. Consequently, the bioresources required for food production are diminishing and new approaches are needed to feed the current and future global population. In the last decades, scientists have developed novel strategies to reduce food loss and waste, improve food production, and find new ingredients, design and build new food structures, and introduce digitalization in the food system. In this work, we provide a general overview on circular economy, alternative technologies for food production such as cellular agriculture, and new sources of ingredients like microalgae, insects, and wood-derived fibers. We present a summary of the whole process of food design using creative problem-solving that fosters food innovation, and digitalization in the food sector such as artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and blockchain technology. Finally, we briefly discuss the effect of COVID-19 on the food system. This review has been written for a broad audience, covering a wide spectrum and giving insights on the most recent advances in the food science and technology area, presenting examples from both academic and industrial sides, in terms of concepts, technologies, and tools which will possibly help the world to achieve food security in the next 30 years.

Introduction

The capacity of Earth to regenerate its own resources is continuously and drastically reducing due to the exponential growth of the human population ( Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971 ; Henderson and Loreau, 2018 ). Over the last 50 years, the global human population has doubled, while the Earth overshoot day—the day on which humanity has exhausted the annual renewable bioresources of the Earth—has continuously become earlier, reaching its earliest date (July 29) in 2018 and 2019. Exceptionally, the Earth overshoot day was delayed to August 22 in 2020, due to the novel Coronavirus pandemic ( Global Footprint Network, 2020a ) ( Figure 1 ). However, this delay is the result of a pandemic disease and it is not the consequence of any long-term planned strategy, which is still required to improve the sustainability of our society. Bioresources are necessary to feed people. However, the production, including loss and waste of food account for 26% of the human ecological footprint ( Global Footprint Network, 2020b ). This is due to low efficiency in food production coupled with non-optimal waste management. By taking action and promoting sustainable behavior in the entire food chain and among consumers, the Earth overshoot day could be delayed, preserving Earth's regenerative capacity ( Moore et al., 2012 ).

Figure 1 . Earth overshoot day (blue) and global population (orange) evolution over the last 50 years.

By 2050, the population is expected to reach 9.7 billion and ensuring global food security will be a priority ( Berners-Lee et al., 2018 ). The first step toward food security is the reduction of waste and loss of food. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), ~1.3 billion tons of food are lost/wasted in the food chain from production to retail and by consumers annually ( Wieben, 2017 ), which highlights the importance of the circular economy and consumer education. In addition, economic barriers should be addressed to give access to healthier and sustainable food to low-income consumers ( Hirvonen et al., 2020 ). However, the reduction of waste and economic barriers is not enough to reach global food security. Indeed, to feed the world population of 2050, food production should increase by 70% ( Floros et al., 2010 ). Additionally, diets should change and rely less on animal products, including more plant-, insect-, and microalgae-based products ( van Huis and Oonincx, 2017 ; Caporgno and Mathys, 2018 ; Lynch et al., 2018 ). This change is necessary as animal-based diets are less sustainable comparatively due to their demand for more natural resources, resulting in more environmental degradation ( Sabaté and Soret, 2014 ). Unfortunately, changing food production and consumption habits is not a straightforward process; it has to be efficient, sustainable, and economically feasible. New food products have to be nutritionally adequate, culturally and socially acceptable, economically accessible, as well as palatable. Moreover, new food products should aim to maintain or improve the health of consumers. Food science and technology can help address these problems by improving food production processes, including novel ingredients from more sustainable sources, and designing new highly-accepted food products.

However, the benefits of consuming novel and upgraded food products is not sufficient to obtain an effect on consumers. Indeed, the acceptability of, and demand for food varies around the world, based on, for example, geographic location, society structure, economy, personal income, religious constraints, and available technology. Food safety and nutritionally adequate foods (in terms of both macro- and micronutrients) are most important in low-income countries ( Sasson, 2012 ; Bain et al., 2013 ), whereas medium- and high-income countries prioritize foods to reduce risk of chronic disease, and functional and environmentally friendly food ( Azais-Braesco et al., 2009 ; Cencic and Chingwaru, 2010 ; Govindaraj, 2015 ). The concept of food has evolved from the amount of nutrients needed by a person to survive on a daily basis ( Floros et al., 2010 ) to a tool to prevent nutrition-related diseases (e.g., non-communicable diseases: type 2 diabetes, coronary diseases, cancer, and obesity), and to improve human physical and mental well-being ( Siró et al., 2008 ), and to slow/control aging ( Rockenfeller and Madeo, 2010 ). Therefore, the development of new food products should consider the needs and demands of consumers. In spite of this, across countries, personal income can limit the access to sufficient food for survival, let alone new and improved food products that have extra benefits.

Coupled to this complex scenario, food demand is also constrained, and affected by human psychology ( Wang et al., 2019 ). The naturally-occurring conservative and neophobic behavior of humans toward new food can lead to nutrition-related diseases due to poor dietary patterns already established during childhood ( Perry et al., 2015 ) and can lead to acceptability problems related to food containing novel ingredients such as insects in Western countries ( La Barbera et al., 2018 ). Additionally, the introduction in our diets of new food products obtained by means of novel technologies and ingredients from food waste and by-products can be undermined by low acceptability caused by human psychology ( Bhatt et al., 2018 ; Cattaneo et al., 2018 ; Siegrist and Hartmann, 2020 ). Therefore, to increase the successful integration of the solutions discussed in this paper into the diet, consumer behavior has to be considered. Finally, it should not be forgotten that food consumption is also determined by pleasure rather than just being a merely mechanical process driven by the need for calories ( Mela, 2006 ; Lowe and Butryn, 2007 ). The latter concept is particularly important when consumers are expected to change their eating habits. New food products developed using sustainable ingredients and processes should be designed to take in consideration sensorial attributes and psychological considerations, which will allow a straightforward transition to more sustainable diets.

The actions needed in the area of food to develop a sustainable society allowing the regeneration of Earth's bio-resources are several. They include changing our eating habits and dietary choices, reducing food waste and loss, preserving biodiversity, reducing the prevalence of food-related diseases, and balancing the distribution of food worldwide. To promote these actions, new ingredients and technologies are necessary ( Table 1 ).

Table 1 . Challenges/solutions matrix for the development of the food of the future using the most recent advances in food science and technology.

This review discusses the most recent advances in food science and technology that aim to ensure food security for the growing human population by developing the food of the future. We discuss (i) the circular economy, where food waste is valorized and enters back into the food production chain improving the sustainability of the food system and reduces Earth's biodiversity and resources loss; (ii) alternative technologies and sources for food production like cellular agriculture, algae, microalgae, insects, and wood-derived fibers, which use Earth's bioresources more efficiently; (iii) the design of food in terms of creative problem-solving that fosters food innovation allowing transition to more sustainable and nutritionally adequate diets without undermining their consumer acceptability; and (iv) digitalization in which artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain technology are used to better control and manage the food chain, and assist the development of novel ingredients and food, boosting the technological shift in the whole food system; (v) we also briefly discuss the effect of COVID-19 on the food supply chain, showing the need to develop a resilient food system.

Food Science and Technology Solutions for Global Food Security

The circular economy.

The unsustainable practice of producing and consuming materials based on the linear (take-make-dispose) economic model calls for a shift toward innovative and sustainable approaches embodied in the principles of the circular economy ( Jørgensen and Pedersen, 2018 ). In contrast to a linear economic model, where materials are produced linearly from a presumably infinite source of raw materials, the circular economy is based on closing the loop of materials and substances in the supply chain. In this model, the value of products, materials, and resources is preserved in the economy for as long as possible ( Merli et al., 2018 ).

Integrated into the food system, the circular economy offers solutions to achieve global food sustainability by minimizing food loss and waste, promoting efficient use of natural resources and mitigating biodiversity loss ( Jurgilevich et al., 2016 ), by retaining the resources within a loop, i.e., the resources are used in a cyclic process, reducing the demand for fresh raw materials in food production. This efficient use of natural resources for food in a circular economy, in turn, helps to rebuild biodiversity by preventing further conversion of natural habitats to agricultural land, which is one of the greatest contributors to biodiversity loss ( Dudley and Alexander, 2017 ).

This measure is highlighted by the fact that an enormous amount of waste is generated at various stages of the food supply chain. Food loss and waste accounts for 30% of the food produced for human consumption globally, translating into an estimated economic loss of USD 1 trillion annually ( FAO, 2019 ). Food loss and waste also takes its toll on the environment in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases associated with disposal of food waste in landfills, as well as in activities associated with the production of food such as agriculture, processing, manufacturing, transportation, storage, refrigeration, distribution, and retail ( Papargyropoulou et al., 2014 ). The various steps in the food supply chain have an embedded greenhouse gas impact, which is exacerbated when food is wasted and lost.

Addressing the challenge of minimizing food loss and waste requires proper identification of what constitutes food loss and waste. The FAO defines food loss and waste as a decrease in the quantity or quality of food along the food supply chain ( FAO, 2019 ). Food loss occurs along the food supply chain from harvest, slaughter, and up to, but not including, the retail level. Food waste, on the other hand, occurs at the retail and consumption level. From the FAO's definition, food that is converted for other uses such as animal feed, and inedible parts of foods, for example, bones, feathers, and peel, are not considered food loss or waste. The Waste and Resources Action Programme ( Quested and Johnson, 2009 ), a charity based in the UK, has defined and categorized food waste as both avoidable and unavoidable. Avoidable food waste includes food that is still considered edible but was thrown away, such as vegetables or fruits that do not pass certain standards, leftover food, and damaged stock that has not been used. Unavoidable food waste arises from food preparation or production and includes those by-products that are not edible in normal circumstances, such as vegetable and fruit peels, bones, fat, and feathers. Despite the lack of consensus on the definition of food loss and waste, the reduction in food loss and waste points in one direction and that is securing global food sustainability.

In a circular food system, the strategies for reducing food waste vary with the type of waste ( Figure 2 ). The best measure to reduce avoidable food waste is prevention, which can be integrated in the various stages of the food supply chain. Preventing overproduction, improving packaging and storage facilities, reducing food surplus by ensuring balanced food distribution, and educating consumers about proper meal planning, better understanding of best before dates, and buying food that may not pass quality control standards based on aesthetics are some preventive measures to reduce avoidable food waste ( Papargyropoulou et al., 2014 ). For unavoidable food waste, reduction can be achieved by utilizing side-stream products as raw materials for the production of new food or non-food materials. The residual waste generated, both from the processing of avoidable and unavoidable food waste, can still be treated through composting, which returns nutrients back to the soil, and used for another cycle of food production ( Jurgilevich et al., 2016 ). Indeed, in a circular food system, waste is ideally non-existent because it is used as a feedstock for another cycle, creating a system that mimics natural regeneration ( Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2019 ).

Figure 2 . Strategies to reduce food waste in the food supply chain in a circular food system: prevention for avoidable food waste (yellow curve) and valorization for unavoidable food waste (orange curve).

The valorization of unavoidable food waste, which mostly includes by-products or side-stream materials from the food processing industries, has resulted in novel food technologies that harness the most out of food waste and add value to food waste. These novel food technologies serve as new routes to achieving a circular food system by converting food waste into new food ingredients or non-food materials. Several ongoing examples of side-stream valorization have been explored and some of the most recent technologies are presented herein and summarized in Table 2 .

Table 2 . Summary of potentially functional and nutritional food components from cheese production, meat processing, seafood processing, and plant-based food production by-products.

One of the most famous success stories of side-stream valorization is the processing of whey, the leftover liquid from cheese production. It is an environmental hazard when disposed of without treatment, having a high biological oxygen demand (BOD) value of >35,000 ppm as well as a high chemical oxygen demand (COD) value of >60,000 ppm ( Smithers, 2008 ). These high BOD and COD values can be detrimental to aquatic life where the untreated whey is disposed of, reducing the available dissolved oxygen for fish and other aquatic animals. However, whey is loaded with both lactose and proteins, and therefore in the early days cheese producers sent their whey for use as pig feed, as still occurs in some areas today. As dairy science advanced, it was discovered that lactose and whey protein have great nutritional and technological potential. Lactose and its derivatives can be separated by various filtration and crystallization methods, which can then be used in infant formula or as a feedstock for glucose and galactose production ( Smithers, 2008 ; de Souza et al., 2010 ). Whey protein has also gained popularity for use in sports performance nutrition and as an enhancer of the functional properties of food, and so has experienced a significant increase in demand, both as isolate and concentrate products ( Lagrange et al., 2015 ).

The meat-processing industry produces various by-products that can also be further processed to obtain food ingredients. The plasma fraction of animal blood, which can easily be obtained by centrifugation, contains various plasma proteins, some of which can stabilize colloidal food systems, just like whey proteins. Others, like fibrinogen and thrombin, can act as meat glue and are therefore useful to make restructured meat product. Leftover skin, bones, and connective tissues can be processed to produce gelatin, an important gelling agent, as well as short peptides that impart an umami taste and are used in flavor enhancers. However, the use of non-muscle tissue from farm animals, especially from cows, would require strict toxicology assessment to ensure safety. There is a risk of spreading transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, a deadly disease caused by prion proteins which might spread to humans through the consumption of materials derived from non-meat tissues ( Toldrá et al., 2012 ).

The by-products of the seafood industry also provide great opportunities for valorization, with several known products and many other yet to be discovered. Fish-derived gelatin from leftover fish skin and bones can be presented as a gelatin alternative for several religious groups, for whom cattle- and swine-derived gelatin products are unacceptable ( Karayannakidis and Zotos, 2016 ). Rich in carotenoid and chitin, shells of common seafood such as crabs, lobster, and prawns can be further processed to extract functional ingredients. The extracted chitin from the shells can be treated to produce chitosan, a well-known biopolymer with the potential to be used as food packaging. One can also extract the red carotenoids present in the shells, most prominently astaxanthin, which can then be used as a nutritional and technological food additive ( Kandra et al., 2012 ). The liquid side stream of the fish-canning industry also has potential as a source of bioactive lipids, such as polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids ( Monteiro et al., 2018 ).

The increasing demand for plant-derived functional ingredients to cater for the vegetarian and vegan market can also be complemented with ingredients isolated from plant food processing side streams. Nixtamalization, the alkaline processing of maize, produces wastewater that is highly alkaline with a high COD of 10 200–20,000 ppm but is rich in carbohydrates and polyphenols ( Gutiérrez-Uribe et al., 2010 ). Microfiltration and ultrafiltration methods are used to isolate enriched fractions of carbohydrates and polyphenols from nixtamalization wastewater, which can later be integrated into various subsequent processes ( Castro-Muñoz and Yáñez-Fernández, 2015 ). Waste from the cereal, fruit, and vegetable industry can also be fermented by microbial means to produce various pigments for food production ( Panesar et al., 2015 ). Pigment extraction can also be performed on the leftover waste of the fresh-cut salad industry, which includes leafy vegetables and fruits that are deemed to be too blemished to be sold to the customer. Aside from pigments, such waste can also be a source of natural gelling agents and bioactive compounds that can be refined for further use in the food industry ( Plazzotta et al., 2017 ). Extraction of carotenoids, flavonoids, and phenolic compounds from fruits and vegetables waste as well as from wastewater (e.g., from olive mill) can be achieved using green technologies such as supercritical carbon dioxide, ultrasound, microwave, pulsed electric fields, enzymes, membrane techniques, and resin adsorption ( Rahmanian et al., 2014 ; Saini et al., 2019 ). Additionally, waste from potato processing, such as potato peel and potato fruit juice (a by-product of potato starch production), can yield various polyphenols, alkaloids, and even protein extracts by using different refining methods ( Fritsch et al., 2017 ).

In addition to food waste, there are also other, often unexpected, sources of food ingredients. For example, while wood cannot be considered part of the food industry by itself, the extraction of emulsifier from sawdust can serve as an example of how the waste of one industrial cycle can be used as a feedstock for another industrial cycle and in effect reduce the overall wasted material ( Pitkänen et al., 2018 ). Straw from grain production, such as barley and wheat, can also be processed to extract oligosaccharides to be used as prebiotic additives into other food matrices ( Huang et al., 2017 ; Alvarez et al., 2020 ). While young bamboo shoots have been commonly used in various Asian cuisines, older bamboo leaves can also act as a source of polyphenolic antioxidants, which can be used to fortify food with bioactive compounds ( Ni et al., 2012 ; Nirmala et al., 2018 ).

Alternative Technologies and Sources for Food Production

To feed the growing population, the circular economy concept must be combined with increasing food production. However, food production has been impaired by depletion of resources, such as water and arable land, and by climate change. Projections indicate that 529,000 climate-related deaths will occur worldwide in 2050, corresponding with the predicted 3.2% reduction in global food availability (including fruits, vegetables, and red meat) caused by climate change ( Springmann et al., 2016 ). Strategies to overcome food production issues have been developed and implemented that aim to improve agricultural productivity and resource use (vertical farming and genetic modification), increase and/or tailor the nutritional value of food (genetic engineering), produce new alternatives to food and/or food ingredients (cellular cultures, insects, algae, and dietary fibers), and protect biodiversity. Such solutions have been designed to supply current and future food demand by sustainably optimizing the use of natural resources and boosting the restructuration of the food industry models ( Figure 3 ).

Figure 3 . A view of future food based on current prospects for optimizing the use of novel techniques, food sources, and nutritional ingredients.

Cellular agriculture is an emerging field with the potential to increase food productivity locally using fewer resources and optimizing the use of land. Cellular agriculture has the potential to produce various types of food with a high content of protein, lipids, and fibers. This technique can be performed with minimal or no animal involvement following two routes: tissue engineering and fermentation ( Stephens et al., 2018 ). In the tissue engineering process, cells collected from living animals are cultured using mechanical and enzymatic techniques to produce muscles to be consumed as food. In the case of the fermentation process, organic molecules are biofabricated by genetically modified bacteria, algae, or yeasts, eliminating the need for animal cells. The Solar Foods company uses the fermentation process to produce Solein, a single-cell pure protein ( https://solarfoods.fi/solein/ ). This bioprocess combines the use of water, vitamins, nutrients, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from air, and solar energy to grow microorganisms. After that, the protein is obtained in powder form and can be used as a food ingredient. Most of the production in cellular agriculture has been focused on animal-derived products such as beef, chicken, fish, lobster, and proteins for the production of milk and eggs ( Post, 2014 ; Stephens et al., 2018 ). Compared with traditional meat, the production of cultured meat can (i) reduce the demand for livestock products, (ii) create a novel nutrition variant for people with dietary restrictions, (iii) favor the control and design of the composition, quality, and flavor of the product, and (iv) reduce the need for land, transportation costs (it can be produced locally), waste production, and greenhouse gas emissions ( Bhat and Fayaz, 2011 ). Moreover, the controlled production of cultured meat can eliminate the presence of unwanted elements, such as saturated fat, microorganisms, hormones, and antibiotics ( Bhat and Fayaz, 2011 ). One of the most important events for cultured meat took place in a 2013 press conference in London, when cultured beef burger meat was tasted by the public for the first time ( O'Riordan et al., 2017 ). After this, cultured meat has inspired several start-ups around the world and some examples are presented in Table 3 ( Clean Meat News Australia, 2019 ).

Table 3 . Examples of start-ups producing different cultured products around the world.

However, cellular agriculture has the potential to produce more than only animal-derivative products. A recent study conducted by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland explored the growing of plant cell cultures from cloudberry, lingonberry, and stoneberry in a plant growth medium. The cells were described to be richer in protein, essential polyunsaturated fatty acids, sugars, and dietary fibers than berry fruits, and additionally to have a fresh odor and flavor ( Nordlund et al., 2018 ). Regarding their use, berry cells can be used to replace berry fruits in smoothies, yogurt, jam, etc. or be dried and incorporated as ingredients in several preparations (e.g., cakes, desserts, and toppings).

Insects are potentially an important source of essential nutrients such as proteins, fat (including unsaturated fatty acids), polysaccharides (including chitin), fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Edible insects are traditionally consumed in different forms (raw, steamed, roasted, smoked, fried, etc.) by populations in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia ( Duda et al., 2019 ; Melgar-Lalanne et al., 2019 ). The production of edible insects is highly efficient, yielding various generations during the year with low mortality rates and requiring only little space, such as vertical systems ( Ramos-Elorduy, 2009 ). Additionally, the cultivation of edible insects utilizes very cheap materials, usually easily found in the surrounding area. Indeed, insects can be fed by food waste and agricultural by-products not consumed by humans, which fits well in the circular bioeconomy models (section The circular economy). The introduction of insect proteins could diversify and create more sustainable dietary alternatives. However, the resistance of consumers to the ingestion of insects needs to be overcome ( La Barbera et al., 2018 ). The introduction of insects in the form of powder or flour can help solve consumer resistance ( Duda et al., 2019 ; Melgar-Lalanne et al., 2019 ). Several technologies are used to transform insect biomass into food ingredients, including drying processes (freeze-drying, oven-drying, fluidized bed drying, microwave-drying, etc.) and extraction methods (ultrasound-assisted extraction, cold atmospheric pressure plasma, and dry fractionation) ( Melgar-Lalanne et al., 2019 ). Recently, cricket powder was used for enriching pasta, resulting in a significant increase in protein, fat, and mineral content, and additionally improving its texture and appearance ( Duda et al., 2019 ). Chitin, extracted from the outer skeleton of insects, is a precursor for bioactive derivatives, such as chitosan, which presents potential to prevent and treat diseases ( Azuma et al., 2015 ; Kerch, 2015 ). Regenerated chitin has been recognized as a promising emulsifier ( Xiao et al., 2018 ), with potential applications including stabilizing yogurt, creams, ice cream, etc. Whole insects, insect powder, and food products from insects such as flavored snacks, energy bars and shakes, and candies are already commercialized around the world. However, food processing and technology is currently needed to help address consumer neophobia and meet sensory requirements ( Melgar-Lalanne et al., 2019 ).

Algae and microalgae are a source of nutrients in various Asian countries ( Priyadarshani and Rath, 2012 ; Wells et al., 2017 ; Sathasivam et al., 2019 ), that can be consumed as such (bulk material) or as an extract. The extracts consists of biomolecules that are synthesize more efficiently than plants ( Torres-Tiji et al., 2020 ). Some techniques used for improving algae and microalgae productivity and their nutritional quality are genotype selection, alteration, and improvement, and controlling growing conditions ( Torres-Tiji et al., 2020 ). Although their direct intake is more traditional (e.g., nori used in sushi preparation), in recent years the extraction of bioactive compounds from algae and microalgae for the preparation of functional food has attracted great interest. Spirulina and Chlorella are the most used microalgae species for this purpose, being recognized by the European Union for uses in food ( Zarbà et al., 2020 ). These microalgae are rich in proteins (i.e., phycocyanin), essential fatty acids (i.e., omega-3, docosahexaenoic acid, and eicosapentaenoic acid), β-glucan, vitamins from various groups (e.g., A, B, C, D2, E, and H), minerals like iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium, and calcium, antioxidants (i.e., ß-carotene), and pigments (i.e., astaxanthin) ( Priyadarshani and Rath, 2012 ; Vigani et al., 2015 ; Wells et al., 2017 ; Sathasivam et al., 2019 ). The latter molecules can be recovered using, for example, pulsed electric field, ultrasound, microwaves, and supercritical CO 2 ( Kadam et al., 2013 ; Buchmann et al., 2018 ).

Finally, in addition to proteins, lipids, and digestible carbohydrates, it is necessary to introduce fiber in to the diet. Dietary fibers include soluble (pectin and hydrocolloids) and insoluble (polysaccharides and lignin) fractions, which are usually obtained through the direct ingestion of fruits, vegetables, cereals, and grains ( McKee and Latner, 2000 ). Although appropriate dietary fiber intake leads to various health benefits, the proliferation of low fiber foods, especially in Western countries resulted in low dietary intake ( McKee and Latner, 2000 ; Anderson et al., 2009 ). This lack of consumed dietary fibers created the demand for fiber supplementation in functional foods ( McKee and Latner, 2000 ; Doyon and Labrecque, 2008 ). As additives, besides all benefits in health and well-being, dietary fibers contribute to food structure and texture formation ( Sakagami et al., 2010 ; Tolba et al., 2011 ; Jones, 2014 ; Aura and Lille, 2016 ).

Sources of dietary fibers include food crops (e.g., wheat, corn, oats, sorghum, oat, etc.), vegetables/fruits (e.g., apple and pear biomasses recovered after juicing process, orange peel and pulp, pineapple shells, etc.) ( McKee and Latner, 2000 ) and wood ( Pitkänen et al., 2018 ). The use of plant-based derivatives and waste aligns with the circular bioeconomy framework and contributes to the sustainability of the food chain.

It is worth mentioning that new and alternative sources of food and food ingredients require approval in the corresponding regulatory systems before commercialization. In Europe, safety assessment is carried out according to the novel food regulation of the European Union [Regulation (EU) 2015/2283]. Important aspects such as composition, stability, allergenicity, and toxicology should be evaluated for each new food or food ingredient ( Pitkänen et al., 2018 ). Such regulatory assessments are responsible for guaranteeing that new food and food ingredients are safe for human consumption.

Food Design

Humans are at the center of the food supply ecosystem, with diverse and dynamic expectations. To impart sustainability in food supply by utilizing novel materials and technologies discussed in the preceding chapters, the framework of food production and consumption should go beyond creating edible objects and integrate creativity to subvert neophobic characteristics of consumers and enhance acceptability of sustainable product innovations. These innovations should also consider changing consumer demographics, lifestyle and nutritional requirements. Food design is a newly practiced discipline to foster human-centric innovation in the food value chain by applying a design thinking process in every step of production to the disposal of food ( Olsen, 2015 ). The design concept utilizes the core ideas of consumer empathy, rapid prototyping, and mandate the collaboration of a multitude of sectors involved in designing food and the distribution of food to the space where we consume it ( Figure 4 ) ( Zampollo, 2020 ).

Figure 4 . Neural network graphical representation of the major disciplines (black dots) in the food design concept and their interconnections. Sub-disciplines arising through communion of ideas of some major disciplines indicated by gray dots.

The sub-discipline of food product design relates to the curation of food products from a technological perspective utilizing innovative process and structured engineering methodologies to translate consumer wishes into product properties. In the future, food producers need to shift their focus from the current conventional approach of mass production, to engineering of food products that emphasizes food structure-property-taste. Through food product design, it is possible to influence the health of consumers by regulating nutrient bioavailability, satiety, gut health, and developing feelings of well-being, as well as encompass consumer choice by modulating consumers sensorial experience. These aspects become important with the introduction of new materials and healthy alternatives where the neophobic characteristic of humans can lead to poor food choices and eating habits due to consumer prejudices or inferior sensorial experience. For example, environmental concerns related to meat substitutes were less relevant for consumers, and sensorial properties were the decisive factor ( Hoek et al., 2011 ; Weinrich, 2019 ). In this regard, food designers and chefs will have an important role in influencing sustainable and healthy eating choices by increasing the acceptability of food products, using molecular gastronomy principles. Innogusto ( www.innogusto.com ), a start-up founded in 2018, aims to develop gastronomic dishes based on meat substitutes to increase their acceptability.

To stimulate taste sensations, electric and thermal energy have been studied, referred to as “digital taste” ( Green and Nachtigal, 2015 ; Ranasinghe et al., 2019 ). For example, reducing the temperature of sweet food products can increase sweet taste adaptation and reduce sweetness intensity ( Green and Nachtigal, 2015 ). On the other hand, electric taste augmentation can modulate the perception of saltiness and sourness in unsalted and diluted food products leading to a possible reduction of salt ( Ranasinghe et al., 2019 ). Another external stimulus that can modify the sensorial experience during food consumption, is social context. In this case, interaction with other people leads to a resonance “mirror” mechanism, that allow people to tune in to the emotions of others. Indeed, positive emotions such as happiness increase the desirability and acceptability of food, contrarily to neutral and negative emotions (angriness) ( Rizzato et al., 2016 ). Also, auditory responses such as that to background music, referred to as “sonic seasoning” ( Reinoso Carvalho et al., 2016 ) have been studied in the context of desirability and overall perception of food. Noise is able to reduce the perception of sweetness and enhance the perception of an umami taste ( Yan and Dando, 2015 ). Bridging the interior design concepts with the sensory perception in a holistic food space design is an interesting opportunity to influence healthy habits and accommodate unconventional food in our daily lives.

Food packaging which falls under the Design for food sub-discipline is expected to play an integral role to tackle issues of food waste/loss. Potential solutions to food waste/loss at the consumers level can be realized by the design of resealable packages, consideration of portion size, clear labeling of “best by” and expiration dates, for example. Although a clear understanding on the interdependency of food waste and packaging design in the circular economy has not yet been established, the design of smart packaging to prolong shelf life and quality of highly perishable food like fresh vegetables, fruits, dairy, and meat products has been considered the most efficient option ( Halloran et al., 2014 ). Packaging is a strong non-verbal medium of communication between product designers and consumers which can potentially be used to favor the consumption of healthier and sustainable options ( Plasek et al., 2020 ). Packaging linguistics has shown differential effect on taste and quality perceptions ( Khan and Lee, 2020 ), whereas designs have shown to create emotional attachment to the product surpassing the effect of taste ( Gunaratne et al., 2019 ). Visual stimuli such as weight, color, size, and shape of the food containers have been linked to the overall liking of the food ( Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2011 ; Harrar and Spence, 2013 ). Food was perceived to be dense with higher satiety when presented in heavy containers compared with light-weighted containers ( Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2011 ).

In light of emerging techniques in food production, it is envisioned that technologies like 3D printing, at both the industrial and household level, will be widely used to design food and recycle food waste ( Gholamipour-Shirazi et al., 2020 ). Upprinting Food ( https://upprintingfood.com/ ), a start-up company, has initiated the production of snacks from waste bread using 3D printing. These initiatives will also encourage the inclusion of industrial side streams (discussed in section the circular economy) in the mainstream using novel technologies. In addition to the increasing need for healthy food, it is envisioned that the food industry will see innovation regarding personalized solutions ( Poutanen et al., 2017 ). In the latter, consumers will be at the center of the food production system, where they can choose food that supports their personal physical and mental well-being, and ethical values. Techniques such as 3D printers can be applied in smart groceries and in the home, where one can print personalized food ( Sun et al., 2015 ) inclusive of molecular gastronomy methods ( D'Angelo et al., 2016 ). A challenge will be to incorporate the food structure-property-taste factor in such systems. In a highly futuristic vision, concepts of personalized medicine are borrowed to address the diverse demands of food through personalized or “smart” food, possibly solving food-related diseases, while reducing human ecological footprint.

Digitalization

Many major challenges faced by global food production, as discussed previously and presented in Table 1 (eating habits and dietary choices, food waste and loss, biodiversity, diseases, and resource availability), can be addressed by food system digitalization. The most recent research advances aim to overcome these challenges using digitalization (summarized in Table 4 and Figure 5 ). The rapidly advancing information and communication technology (ICT) sector has enabled innovative technologies to be applied along the agri-food chain to meet the demands for safe and sustainable food production (i.e., traceability) ( Demartini et al., 2018 ; Raheem et al., 2019 ).

Table 4 . Recent research advances in digitalization solutions to overcome challenges in global food production.

Figure 5 . Digitalization solutions for the development of future food. Red area represents digitalization-enabled targets. IoT, Internet of Things; ML, Machine Learning; RFID, Radio Frequency Identification; AI, Artificial Intelligence.

An interesting part of ICT is artificial intelligence (AI). The latter is a field of computer science that allows machines, especially computer systems, to have cognitive functions like humans. These machines can learn, infer, adapt, and make decisions based on collected data ( Salah et al., 2019 ). Over the past decade, AI has changed the food industry in extensive ways by aiding crop sustainability, marketing strategies, food sales, eating habits and preferences, food design and new product development, maintaining health and safety systems, managing food waste, and predicting health problems associated with food.

Digitalization can be used to modify our perception of food and help solve unsustainable eating behaviors. It is hoped that a better insight into how the neural network in the human brain works upon seeing food can be discovered using AI in the future and can thus direct consumer preference toward healthier diets. Additionally, it can be used to assist the development of new food structures and molecules such as modeling food gelling agents (e.g., using fuzzy modeling to predict the influence of different gum-protein emulsifier concentration on mayonnaise), and the design of liquid-crystalline food (by predicting the most stable liquid crystalline phases using predictive computer simulation tool based on field theory) ( Mezzenga et al., 2006 ; Ghoush et al., 2008 ; Dalkas and Euston, 2020 ). In addition, the development of aroma profiles can be explored using AI. Electronic eyes, noses, and tongues can analyze food similarly to sensory panelists and help in the optimization of quality control in food production ( Loutfi et al., 2015 ; Nicolotti et al., 2019 ; Xu et al., 2019 ). Companies like Gastrograph AI ( https://gastrograph.com/ ) and Whisk ( https://whisk.com/ ) are using AI and natural language processing to model consumer sensory perception, predict their preferences toward food and beverage products, map the world's food ingredients, and provide specific advertisements based on consumer personalization and preferences.

With the advancement of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), in the future, digitalization can offer obesity-related solutions, where consumers can eat healthy food while simultaneously seeing unhealthy desirable food. This possibility has been studied by Okajima et al. (2013) using an AR system to change visual food appearance in real time. In their study, the visual appearance of food can highly influence food perception in terms of taste and perceived texture.

AI also provides a major solution to food waste problems by estimating food demand quantity, predicting waste volumes, and supporting effective cleaning methods by smart waste management ( Adeogba et al., 2019 ; Calp, 2019 ; Gupta et al., 2019 ).

AI-enabled agents, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, and blockchain technology can be combined to maximize the supply network and increase the revenue of all parties involved along the agri-food value chain ( Salah et al., 2019 ). Blockchain is a technology that can record multiple transactions from multiple parties across a complex network. Changing the records inside the blockchain requires the consensus of all parties involved, thus giving a high level of confidence in the data ( Olsen et al., 2019 ). Blockchain technology can support the traceability and transparency of the food supply chain, possibly increasing the trust of consumers, and in combination with AI, intelligent precision farming can be achieved, as illustrated in Figure 6 .

Figure 6 . Digitalization in the food supply chain: intelligent precision farming with artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain. IoT, Internet of Things; ML, Machine Learning. Modified from Salah et al. (2019) and reproduced with permission from IEEE.

The physical flow of the food supply chain is supported by the digital flow, consisting of different interconnected digital tools. As each block is approved, it can be added to the chain of transactions, and it becomes a permanent record of the entire process. Each blockchain contains specific information about the process where it describes the crops used, equipment, process methods, batch number, conditions, shelf-time, expiration date, etc. ( Kamath, 2018 ; Kamilaris et al., 2019 ).

Traceability and transparency of the complex food supply network are continuously increasing their importance in food manufacturing management. Not only are they an effective way to control the quality and safety of food production, but they can also be effective tools to monitor the flow of resources from raw materials to the end consumer. In the future, it will be essential to recognize the bottlenecks of the entire food supply chain and redirect the food resource allocation accordingly to minimize food waste.

The digital tools reviewed here can be combined with all the solutions proposed before, enabling fast achievement of the necessary conditions for feeding the increasing world population while maintaining our natural resources.

The Effect of Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic on the Food System

Although the strategies examined in this review can possibly help reaching food security in 2050, the entire food system has been facing a new challenge because of COVID-19 pandemic. Since December 2019, a new severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by a novel Coronavirus started spreading worldwide from China. To contain the diffusion of the novel Coronavirus and avoid the collapse of national sanitary systems, several governments locked down entire nations. These actions had severe consequences on global economy, including the food system.

As first consequence, the lockdown changed consumer purchasing behavior. At the initial stage of the lockdown, panic-buying behavior was dominant, in which consumers were buying canned foods and stockpiling them, leading to shortage of food in several supermarkets ( Nicola et al., 2020 ). However, as the lockdown proceeded, this behavior become more moderate ( Bakalis et al., 2020 ). The problems faced by the food supply chain in assuring food availability for the entire population have risen concerns about its architecture. Indeed, as discussed by Bakalis et al. (2020) , the western world food supply chain has an architecture with a bottleneck at the supermarkets/suppliers interface where most of the food is controlled by a small number of organizations. Additionally, as noted by these authors, problems with timely packaging of basic foods (such as flour) led to their shortage. Bakalis et al. (2020) suggest that the architecture of the food system should be more local, decentralized, sustainable, and efficient. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of the food system, indicating that the aid of future automation (robotics) and AI would help to maintain an operational supply chain. Therefore, the entire food system should be rethought with a resilient and sustainable perspective, which can assure adequate, safe, and health-promoting food to all despite of unpredictable events such as COVID-19, by balancing the roles of local and global producers and involving policymakers ( Bakalis et al., 2020 ; Galanakis, 2020 ).

Another problem caused by the lockdown was food waste. Indeed, restaurants, catering services, and food producers increased their food waste due to forced closure and rupture of the food chain ( Bakalis et al., 2020 ). On the other hand, consumers become more aware of food waste and strived to reduce household food waste. Unfortunately, the positive behavior of consumers toward reducing food waste has been more driven by the COVID-19 lockdown situation rather than an awareness ( Jribi et al., 2020 ).

COVID-19 has also showed the importance of designing food products that can help boosting our immune system and avoid the diffusion of virions through the entire food chain ( Galanakis, 2020 ; Roos, 2020 ). Virions can enter the food chain during food production, handling, packing, storage, and transportation and be transmitted to consumers. This possibility is increased with minimally processed foods and animal products. Therefore, packaging and handling of minimally processed foods should be considered to reduce viral transfer while avoiding increasing waste. The survival of virions in food products can be reduced by better designing and engineering foods taking into consideration for example not only thermal inactivation of virions but also the interaction between temperature of inactivation, water activity of food, and food matrix effects ( Roos, 2020 ).

Therefore, to reach food security by 2050, besides the solutions highlighted in section (Food science and technology solutions for global food security), it is of foremost important to implement actions in the entire food system that can counteract exceptional circumstances such as the global pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus.

Conclusions and Outlook

To achieve food security in the next 30 years while maintaining our natural bioresources, a transition from the current food system to a more efficient, healthier, equal, and consumer- and environment-centered food system is necessary. This transition, however, is complex and not straightforward. First, we need to fully transition from a linear to a circular economy where side streams and waste are valorized as new sources of food materials/ingredients, leading to more efficient use of the available bioresources. Secondly, food production has to increase. For this, vertical farming, genetic engineering, cellular agriculture, and unconventional sources of ingredients such as microalgae, insects, and wood-derived fibers can make a valid contribution by leading to a more efficient use of land, an increase in food and ingredient productivity, a shift from global to local production which reduces transportation, and the transformation of non-reusable and inedible waste into ingredients with novel functionalities. However, to obtain acceptable sustainable food using novel ingredients and technologies, the aid of food design is necessary in which conceptualization, development, and engineering in terms of food structure, appearance, functionality, and service result in food with higher appeal for consumers. To complement these solutions, digital technology offers an additional potential boost. Indeed, AI, blockchain, and VR and AR are tools which can better manage the whole food chain to guarantee quality and sustainability, assist in the development of new ingredients and structures, and change the perception of food improving acceptability, which can lead to a reduction of food-related diseases.

By cooperating on a global scale, we can envision that in the future it may be common to, for example, 3D print a steak at home using cells or plant-based proteins. The understanding of the interaction between our gastrointestinal tract and the food ingredients/structures aided by AI and biosensors might allow the 3D printed steak to be tailored in terms of nutritional value and individual preferences. The food developed in the future can possibly also self-regulate its digestibility and bioavailability of nutrients. In this context, the same foodstuff consumed by two different people would be absorbed according to the individuals' needs. In this futuristic example, the food of the future would be able to solve food-related diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, while maintaining the ability of the Earth to renew its bioresources.

However, the strategies and solutions proposed here can possibly only help to achieve sustainable food supply by 2050 if they are supported and encouraged globally by common policies. Innovations in food science and technology can ensure the availability of acceptable, adequate, and nutritious food, and can help shape the behavior of consumers toward a more sustainable diet. Finally, the recent COVID-19 global pandemic has highlighted the importance of developing a resilient food system, which can cope with exceptional and unexpected situations. All these actions can possibly help in achieving food security by 2050.

Author Contributions

FV wrote abstract, sections introduction, the effect of novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on the food system, and conclusions and outlook, and coordinated the writing process. MA and FA wrote section the circular economy. DM and JS wrote section alternative technologies and sources for food production. MB and JV wrote section food design. AA and EP wrote section digitalization. FV and KM revised and edited the whole manuscript. All authors have approved the final version before submission and contributed to planning the contents of the manuscript.

FV, MA, FA, and KM acknowledge the Academy of Finland for funding (FV: Project No. 316244, MA: Project No. 330617, FA: Project No. 322514, KM: Project No. 311244). DM acknowledges Tandem Forest Values for funding (TFV 2018-0016).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We thank JV for drawing Figures 2 – 6 , and Mr. Troy Faithfull for revising and editing the manuscript.

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Keywords: food loss and food waste, circular economy, food production and food security, food structure design, new ingredients, digitalization, food design

Citation: Valoppi F, Agustin M, Abik F, Morais de Carvalho D, Sithole J, Bhattarai M, Varis JJ, Arzami ANAB, Pulkkinen E and Mikkonen KS (2021) Insight on Current Advances in Food Science and Technology for Feeding the World Population. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5:626227. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.626227

Received: 30 November 2020; Accepted: 23 September 2021; Published: 21 October 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Valoppi, Agustin, Abik, Morais de Carvalho, Sithole, Bhattarai, Varis, Arzami, Pulkkinen and Mikkonen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Fabio Valoppi, fabio.valoppi@helsinki.fi

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Innovation can accelerate the transition towards a sustainable food system

• Mario Herrero   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7741-5090 1 ,
• Philip K. Thornton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1854-0182 2 ,
• Daniel Mason-D’Croz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0673-2301 1 ,
• Jeda Palmer 1 ,
• Tim G. Benton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7448-1973 3 ,
• Benjamin L. Bodirsky   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8242-6712 4 ,
• Jessica R. Bogard   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5503-5284 1 ,
• Andrew Hall   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8580-6569 1 ,
• Bernice Lee 3 ,
• Karine Nyborg   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0359-548X 5 ,
• Prajal Pradhan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0491-5489 4 ,
• Graham D. Bonnett 1 ,
• Brett A. Bryan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4834-5641 6 ,
• Bruce M. Campbell 7 , 8 ,
• Svend Christensen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1112-1954 7 ,
• Michael Clark   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7161-7751 9 ,
• Mathew T. Cook 1 ,
• Imke J. M. de Boer 10 ,
• Chris Downs 1 ,
• Kanar Dizyee 1 ,
• Christian Folberth   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6738-5238 11 ,
• Cecile M. Godde 1 ,
• James S. Gerber   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6890-0481 12 ,
• Michael Grundy 1 ,
• Petr Havlik 11 ,
• Andrew Jarvis 8 ,
• Richard King   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6404-8052 3 ,
• Ana Maria Loboguerrero   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2690-0763 8 ,
• Mauricio A. Lopes   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0671-9940 11 ,
• C. Lynne McIntyre 1 ,
• Rosamond Naylor 13 ,
• Javier Navarro 1 ,
• Michael Obersteiner   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6981-2769 11 ,
• Alejandro Parodi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1351-138X 10 ,
• Mark B. Peoples 1 ,
• Ilje Pikaar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1820-9983 14 , 15 ,
• Alexander Popp 4 ,
• Johan Rockström 4 , 16 ,
• Michael J. Robertson 1 ,
• Pete Smith   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3784-1124 17 ,
• Elke Stehfest   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3016-2679 18 ,
• Steve M. Swain   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6118-745X 1 ,
• Hugo Valin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0618-773X 11 ,
• Mark van Wijk 19 ,
• Hannah H. E. van Zanten   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5262-5518 10 ,
• Sonja Vermeulen 3 , 20 ,
• Joost Vervoort 21 &
• Paul C. West   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9024-1657 12  

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Future technologies and systemic innovation are critical for the profound transformation the food system needs. These innovations range from food production, land use and emissions, all the way to improved diets and waste management. Here, we identify these technologies, assess their readiness and propose eight action points that could accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable food system. We argue that the speed of innovation could be significantly increased with the appropriate incentives, regulations and social licence. These, in turn, require constructive stakeholder dialogue and clear transition pathways.

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Acknowledgements

M.H., D.M.-D., J.P.J., J.R.B., G.D.B., M.T.C., C.D., C.M.G., M.G., C.L.M., J.N., M.B.P., M.J.R. and S.M.S. acknowledge funding from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation; P.T., B.M.C., A.J. and A.M.L. acknowledge funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements (see https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors ). The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of these organizations. B.L.B. acknowledges funding from the NAVIGATE project of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 821124, and by the project SHAPE, which is part of AXIS, an ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate, and funded by FORMAS (SE), FFG/BMWFW (AT), DLR/BMBF (DE, grant no. 01LS1907A-B-C), NWO (NL) and RCN (NO) with co-funding by the European Union (grant no. 776608); P.P. acknowledges funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grant agreement no. 01DP17035); M.C. acknowledges funding from the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People), award number 205212/Z/16/Z; J.S.G., P.S. and P.C.W. acknowledge funding from the Belmont Forum/FACCE-JPI DEVIL project (grant no. NE/M021327/1); A.P. acknowledges funding from the NAVIGATE project of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 821124, and by the project SHAPE, which is part of AXIS, an ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate, and funded by FORMAS (SE), FFG/BMWFW (AT), DLR/BMBF (DE, grant no. 01LS1907A-B-C), NWO (NL) and RCN (NO) with co-funding by the European Union (grant no. 776608).

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M.H., P.K.T., D.M.C., J.P. and J.B. designed the research. M.H., P.K.T., D.M.C., J.P., A.H., B.L. and K.N. wrote the manuscript. M.H., P.K.T., D.M.C. J.P., J.B., C.G., K.D. and J.N. analysed data. All authors contributed data and edited the paper.

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Herrero, M., Thornton, P.K., Mason-D’Croz, D. et al. Innovation can accelerate the transition towards a sustainable food system. Nat Food 1 , 266–272 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-0074-1

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The Role of Science, Technology and Innovation in Transforming Food Systems Globally

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Although much progress has been made in past decades, the prospects for food and nutrition security are now deteriorating and the converging crises of climate change and Covid-19 present major risks for nutrition and health, and challenges to the development of sustainable food systems. In 2018, the InterAcademy Partnership published a report on the scientific opportunities and challenges for food and nutrition security and agriculture based on four regional reports by academy networks in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. The present chapter draws on new evidence from the regions reaffirming the continuing rapid pace of science, technology and innovation and the need to act urgently worldwide to capitalise on the new opportunities to transform food systems. We cover issues around sustainable, healthy food systems in terms of the whole food value chain, including consumption and waste, the interconnections between agriculture and natural resources, and the objectives for developing a more balanced food production strategy (for land and sea) to deliver nutritional, social and environmental benefits. Our focus is on science, and we discuss a range of transdisciplinary research opportunities that can underpin the UN FSS Action Tracks, inform the introduction of game-changers, and provide core resources to stimulate innovation, inform practice and guide policy decisions. Academies of science, with their strengths of scientific excellence, inclusiveness, diversity and the capacity to link the national, regional and global levels, are continuing to support the scientific community’s a key role in catalysing action. Our recommendations concentrate on priorities around building the science base – including the recognition of the importance of fundamental research – to generate diverse yet equitable solutions for providing sustainable, healthy diets that are culturally sensitive and attend to the needs of vulnerable populations. We also urge better use of the transdisciplinary science base to advise policymaking, and suggest that this would be greatly advanced by constituting an international advisory Panel for Food and Nutrition Security, with particular emphasis on sustainable food systems.

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Innovation can accelerate the transition towards a sustainable food system

Contested agri-food futures: Introduction to the Special Issue

The Food Industry as a Partner for Public Health?

1 introduction: the transformation of food systems.

The world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets linked to hunger and food and nutrition security. According to FAO data (FAO 2020 ), the number of hungry people has increased by 10% in the past 5 years and 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Some countries in Asia and Africa have made significant progress in increasing food and nutrition security alongside reducing poverty in the past decade, but others have not (EIU 2020 ). The risks continue to be compounded by the impacts of population growth, urbanisation, climate and other environmental changes, market instability and economic inequality. Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated problems and imposed disproportionate effects on the economically vulnerable, including marginalised groups in urban areas and smallholder farmers in rural areas (FAO 2020 ; EIU 2020 ). However, while there are unprecedented challenges, there are also unprecedented opportunities to capitalise on science, technology and innovation for the purpose of transforming food systems.

In 2018, the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), the global network of more than 140 academies of science, engineering and medicine, published a global report on food and nutrition security and agriculture, drawing on information from four regional reports prepared by academy networks in Africa (NASAC), Asia (AASSA), the Americas (IANAS) and Europe (EASAC) and emphasising the value of taking a transdisciplinary approach. In the present chapter, we present an update on some of the issues from that global report linked to the assessments made in the chapters in this volume prepared by the regional academy networks for the UNFSS.

The work of the academies has adopted an integrative food systems approach that considers all points along the value chain, encompassing food processing, transport, retail, consumption, and recycling, as well as agricultural production. Moreover, in the transformation of food systems towards economic, social and environmental sustainability, setting agricultural priorities must take account of climate change and pressures on other critical natural resources, particularly water soil and energy, and the continuing need to avoid further loss in ecosystem biodiversity. Interest worldwide in the sustainability of food systems is accelerating (e.g., Global Panel 2020 ; IFPRI 2020 ; Food Systems Dashboard 2020 ; von Braun et al. 2021 ).

In this chapter, which covers the opportunities and challenges for food systems in tackling malnutrition in all its forms (undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity), we frame the contribution that science can make to the local-global connectivity of food systems: (i) to strengthen and safeguard international public goods, i.e., those goods and services that have to be provided at a scale beyond that of individual countries or that can be better achieved collectively; (ii) to understand and tackle environmental and institutional risks in an increasingly uncertain world; and (iii) to help to address the SDGs by resolving complexities within evidence-based policies and programmes and their potential conflicts.

2 Regional Heterogeneity

Inevitably, in a summary of the global position, it is difficult to capture the diversity within and between regions relating to the challenges for food systems. The regional chapters are indicative of the territorial dimension in analysing obstacles to food and nutrition security, emphasising specific contexts for marginalised peoples and smallholder farmers, e.g., for the Hindu Kush Himalayan region (AASSA 2021 ). In Africa, although remarkable progress has been made over the last two decades in reducing extreme hunger, there are increasing pressures on food systems that require radical action (discussed in detail in NASAC 2021 ). Most African Union member states are not on track to achieve the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Plan goals (African Union 2020 ). In the comprehensive publication on country-level data in the Americas that accompanied the regional report on food and nutrition security and agriculture (IANAS 2017 , regional update IANAS 2021 ), there was detailed discussion of diversities within the region and of variation in the social determinants of food and nutrition security, e.g., related to gender. Other regional assessments find moderate-severe food insecurity (SDG Indicator 2.1.2) across the FAO Europe-Central Asia region, varying from 6.7% in the EU to 19% in the Caucasus. Obesity throughout this region is higher than the world average, Footnote 1 a challenge that has been examined by EASAC ( 2021 ).

3 Agriculture-Environment Nexus

IAP defines the desired outcome for food systems as access for all to a healthy and affordable diet that is environmentally sustainably produced and culturally acceptable. The IAP report from 2018 cautioned that an emphasis on increasing total factor productivity (TFP, the efficiency in the use of labour, land, capital and other inputs) is not warranted if such a focus leads to reductions in environmental protection. Since then, there has been continuing interest in using research to leverage TFP for sustainable and resilient farming (e.g., Coomes et al. 2019 ). In particular, the paradox of productivity has been highlighted (Benton and Bailey 2019 ), whereby agricultural productivity may generate food system inefficiency. That is, productivity, when leading to the increased availability of cheaper calories, may help to promote obesity, although nutritional content matters as much as calories. Current global competition policies incentivise producers who can produce the most food for the least amount of money, typically with accompanying environmental damage, including biodiversity loss (Chatham House 2021 ). The strategic focus of research and development, as well as production systems, should shift from staple crops, with the current emphasis on production of a narrow range of calorie-intensive staples, to a balanced strategy for crops that are of more value in terms of nutritional, social and environmental benefits, including fruit, vegetables, seeds, nuts and legumes (as food and feed, NASAC 2021 ).

Reform of food systems requires decision-makers to recognise the interdependence of supply-side and demand-side (including dietary change and waste reduction) actions. There must be further consideration given to strengthening coherence between global agreements, e.g., on responsible investment, and national action (Chatham House 2021 ). And, the continuing food system sustainability challenge of balancing production objectives for agricultural exports with satisfying domestic food and nutrition requirements is an issue for some countries (e.g., IANAS 2021 ).

Current intensive agricultural production depends heavily on fertilisers, pesticides, energy, land and water, with negative consequences for environmental sustainability. Changing environmental conditions and competition for key resources such as land and water provoke violence and conflict, exacerbating the vicious circle of hunger and poverty (NASAC 2021 ). Discussion in the NASAC ( 2021 ) Policy Brief exemplifies some of the particular issues for managing water demand, including conservation and the recycling of waste water, and notes the opportunities for science, technology and innovation in new irrigation schemes. Research and innovation play a crucial role in the transformation to sustainable food systems that produce more efficiently by environmentally friendly means. The options for the convergence of technological and societal innovation (including outputs from biotechnology, AI, digitalisation, and from social and cognitive sciences), exemplified later in this chapter, help to underpin the objectives for sustainable food systems.

Agro-ecology encompasses various approaches to using nature-based solutions for regenerative agriculture innovation (HLPE 2019 ) and systems research is still needed to help strengthen the evidence base for agro-ecological (nature-based) approaches. For example, agroforestry in sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to help tackle health concerns associated with a lack of food and nutrition security (non-communicable diseases) and with human migration, but requires additional research to characterise any increased risk from infectious disease alongside the beneficial outcomes (Rosenstock et al. 2019 ).

Developing diverse and resilient production systems worldwide is important in preparing for the likelihood of cumulative threats from extreme weather events through spillover across multiple food sectors on land and sea (Cottrell et al. 2019 ). In this context, it is relevant to note the interest in the potential of oceans for sustainable economies in addressing food security, biodiversity and climate change. One of the UK Presidency’s core themes for UN FCCC COP26 is “Nature,” with objectives for sustainable land use, sustainable and resilient agriculture, and increasing ambition and awareness of the ocean’s potential. This potential is also of great importance for the UN FSS Action Track on nature-positive production. By contrast with difficulties in expanding land-based agriculture, the potential for the sustainable production of fish and other seafood is increasingly recognised (Lubchenco et al. 2020 ; Costello et al. 2020 ) and brings new possibilities for local livelihoods. Fish supplies provide 19% of the animal protein in African diets (Chan et al. 2019 ; NASAC 2021 ). However, currently, one-third of the world’s marine fish stocks are overfished (FAO 2020 ). Realising the potential of the oceans requires technological innovation and policy reform for fishery management and governance, to restore wild fish stocks, eliminate illegal and unregulated fishing, and ensure sustainable mariculture so as to minimise environmental impacts. Oceans can contribute to climate change mitigation as well as to improved food systems, but it is important to be aware of inadvertent consequences of policy action, e.g., adoption of industrial-scale aquaculture can be associated with rapid growth in GHGs (in China, Yuan et al. 2019 ). Genetic improvement of fish species may help to reduce the environmental footprint of aquaculture (for example, in Africa, where aquaculture has been expanding at a faster rate than in some other places, NASAC 2021 ). This exemplifies a general point about seeking co-ordinated policy across sectors to avoid unintended effects and negative trade-offs. Another example is provided by poorly-designed land use policies to increase bioenergy production, which drive increases in land rent with negative implications for food and nutrition security (Fujimori et al. 2019 ).

4 Delivering Healthy Diets, Sustainably Produced, Under Climate Change

An accumulating evidence base demonstrates that climate change exacerbates food insecurity in all regions by reducing crop yield and nutritional content and by posing additional food safety risks from toxins and microbial contamination (e.g., IPCC 2019 ; Park et al. 2019 ; Ray et al. 2019 ; Watts et al. 2021 ). The effects are most pronounced in those groups who are already vulnerable, e.g., children, because of reduced nutrient intake (Park et al. 2019 ) or a decline in dietary diversity (Niles et al. 2021 ). A systematic review of the literature identified climate change and violent conflict as the most consistent predictors of child malnutrition (Brown et al. 2020 ). By increasing the volatility of risks in the global food system, climate change may also reduce the incentive to invest (IAP 2018 ), and rising heat- and humidity-induced declines in labour productivity reduce the income of subsistence farmers (Andrews et al. 2018 ).

Although better international integration of food trade can be a key component of climate change adaptation at the global scale, it requires sensitive implementation to benefit all regions (Janssens et al. 2020 ): in hunger-affected export-oriented regions, partial trade integration may exacerbate food and nutrition insecurity by increasing exports at the expense of domestic food availability. When assessing trade implications, it is also important to appreciate that climate change presents a risk to global port operations, with the greatest risk being projected for ports located in the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Peninsula and the African Mediterranean (Izaguirre et al. 2021 ).

There are twin, overarching challenges for food systems: how can they adapt to climate change and, at the same time, reduce their own contribution to it, including in regard to GHG emissions? These intertwined challenges are discussed in all of the regional assessments. Multiple scientific opportunities have been identified to adapt by developing climate-resilient agriculture, e.g., from the application of biosciences to breed improved crop varieties resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses, as well as for the social sciences to understand and influence the behaviour of farmers, manufacturers and consumers in responding to climate change (see, for example, EASAC 2021 ). Combining evidence-based measures will also be essential to mitigate GHG emissions from the sector (currently contributing approximately 30% of global GHGs, Watts et al. 2021 ), including improving agronomic practices, reducing waste, and shifting to diets with a lower carbon footprint. For example, a background paper prepared in 2020 for the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) of UN FCCC COP Footnote 2 explored agronomic case studies (in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe) for managing nitrogen pollution (including the powerful GHG nitrous oxide) and improving manure management so as to decrease GHGs and benefit the environment. Capitalising on such research requires better connections between science and the broader community, along with relevant policy processes. There is particular need to dismantle obstacles to the transferability of practices and the scaling up of local research results to guide decision-making at the national and regional levels.

One major mitigation opportunity discussed by IAP ( 2018 ) and in all of the regional assessments relates to the potential to adjust dietary consumption patterns so as to reduce GHGs and, at the same time, gain significant potential health benefits (see Neufeld et al. 2021 for discussion of the definition of a healthy diet). For example, there is evidence that reducing red meat consumption, where it is excessive, can improve population health (Willett et al. 2019 ; systematic review of the literature in Jarmul et al. 2020 ). Red meat supplies only 1% of calories worldwide, while accounting for 25% of all land use emissions (Hong et al. 2021 ), though meat is an important source of protein, minerals and vitamins. The policies for reaching such consumption adjustments require more research to actually identify solutions. The proportion of excess deaths attributable to excess red meat consumption is highest in Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Americas and the Western Pacific (Watts et al. 2021 ). However, some populations consume sustainable diets that are meat-based, e.g., the Inuit Indigenous People in the Canadian Arctic: proposals for dietary change must be carefully designed, evidence-based and culturally sensitive in being adapted to circumstances and protecting nutrient supplies for the most vulnerable groups. It should also be acknowledged that the efficiency of livestock production varies according to farming system, such that conclusions, e.g., about the sustainability of pastoral cattle production, may be different from those for feed-lot cattle production (Adeosogen et al. 2019 ; AASSA 2021 ), and that livestock may be the only agricultural activity possible in dryland regions that do not support the cultivation of crops.

Although Africa accounts for the smallest regional share of total anthropogenic GHG emissions, about half of this is linked to agriculture, and the continent is experiencing the fastest increase of all regions (Tongwane and Moeletsi 2018 ; Latin America and South East Asia are also demonstrating rapid growth, Hong et al. 2021 ). As part of the whole systems approach, formulation of mitigation solutions must decouple increases in livestock productivity (and cereal productivity, Loon et al. 2019 ) from increases in GHGs. Progress is being made (e.g., in China, Cui et al. 2018 ; AASSA 2021 ), and decoupling can be informed by better use of the research evidence available, e.g., for improving herd management and animal health, breeding new varieties (with better feed conversion and energy utilisation efficiencies), improving forage provision (e.g., NASAC 2021 ) and strengthening targeted social protection mechanisms, alongside more generic recommendations for dietary change (EASAC 2021 ).

There are unprecedented scientific opportunities coming within range, but there are also multiple obstacles to mainstreaming climate change solutions into food system development planning. Evaluation of obstacles in India (Singh et al. 2017 ) highlights the limited access to finance, difficulties in accessing research and education, and delays in accessing weather information. Systematic review of the literature on smallholder production systems in South Asia (Aryal et al. 2020 ) notes weaknesses in the institutional infrastructure for implementing and disseminating available solutions: the application of science requires institutional change. At the global scale, there is a need for enhanced access to climate information and services around climate-resilient food security actions (WMO 2019 ), e.g., to aid decisions on the most suitable crops and planting times.

5 Responding to Covid-19

Climate change and Covid-19 are converging crises for health in many respects (Anon 2021 ), including food and nutrition security. Observations early in the pandemic Footnote 3 indicated that the production of staple food crops during critical periods (planting and harvesting) was vulnerable to interruptions in labour supply; food processing, transport and retail were also affected early on, particularly the relatively perishable, nutritionally-important fresh fruit and vegetables (Ali et al. 2020 ). Subsequent comprehensive assessment of consequences for global food security (Swinner and McDermott 2020 ) has evaluated how adverse effects on local practice and routines are transmitted to longer-term impacts on poverty and food systems worldwide in increasingly interconnected trade and markets. In some cases, supply disruption has been aggravated by national decisions to restrict the export of food. Footnote 4 The combined effects of Covid-19 in regard to economic recession and food system disruption are particularly detrimental to the poor (Ali et al. 2020 ; Swinner and McDermott 2020 , which includes case studies in Ethiopia, China, Egypt and Myanmar; NASAC 2021 ). However, in some regions, food systems proved relatively resilient (IANAS 2021 ), and there are also examples of good practice in new safety net programmes, including school feeding programmes that should be more widely shared and implemented. Tackling the consequences for child malnutrition has been identified as a particular priority for action (Fore et al. 2020 ), as has attention to gender bias, whereby women are suffering more adverse effects as a consequence of Covid-19-changed household and community dynamics (Swinner and McDermott 2020 ).

As emphasised by EASAC ( 2021 ), the pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of over-reliance on just-in-time and lean delivery systems, globalised food production and distribution based on complex value chains. Therefore, opportunities for increasing the localisation of production systems should be re-examined. However, there is often a mismatch in the timescale needed to adapt to Covid-19 between the imperative for early action to protect vulnerable groups and the relatively slow policy responses (Savary et al. 2020 ). Capitalising on the scientific opportunities may help to minimise this mismatch, e.g., improving food safety and reducing post-harvest losses (IAP 2018 ), implementing evidence-based social protection measures and using Information and Communication Technologies for e-commerce, food supply resilience, early warning systems, and health delivery. Post-Covid-19 initiatives on novel foods, and urban and peri-urban farming systems, can also strengthen food supply chains and create new livelihoods for expanding urban populations, although it is also important to understand and manage inadvertent consequences for rural employment and the environment (Ali et al. 2020 ).

6 Using Science, Technology and Innovation to Promote and Evaluate Action

Continuing with business as usual will not meet the objectives for transformative change. To reaffirm a core message from IAP ( 2018 ): there is urgent need to use currently available evidence to strengthen policies and programmes, and to invest in initiatives to gain new knowledge. Examples of what is possible are discussed extensively elsewhere (e.g., Fanzo et al. 2020 ; Lillford and Hermansson 2020 ). Footnote 5 It is not the purpose here to provide a detailed assessment of transdisciplinary research priorities, but in Table 1 , we map some onto the UN FSS Action Tracks to emphasise new opportunities that are coming within range and the need for science to achieve its potential. Examples are illustrative, not comprehensive; more detail on these and other research priorities are provided in IAP ( 2018 ), the regional chapters and in Sects. 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 of this chapter. There are also, of course, many interactions between research streams and objectives that cannot be captured in Table 1 .

Several general recommendations can be made:

There is a need to increase the commitment to invest in fundamental science, and then connect that to applications and align it all with development priorities. There is also an important priority to develop improved methodologies for understanding the levers of change, including the attributes of “game-changers.” That is, how to attribute outcomes and impact to investments chosen and scientific or other actions undertaken.

There are new opportunities to improve collaboration and coordination worldwide, as well as build partnerships among the public and private sectors, NGOs and other stakeholders to co-design and conduct research. Transdisciplinary approaches should be encouraged. There is increasing entrepreneurial activity worldwide, e.g., in the Latin America region, a wide range of start-up company activities includes novel foods, novel production systems, and novel approaches to the optimisation of water and other natural resources (IANAS 2021 ). There are also considerable opportunities in Africa for action on agriculture to stimulate economic growth, reducing poverty while also increasing food and nutrition security (Baumuller et al. 2021 ; NASAC 2021 ).

Training and mentoring the next generation of researchers worldwide is essential: academies of science have a key role in encouraging younger scientists.

Obstacles, especially in low- and middle-income countries, in the use and production of data and in the scaling up of applications must be addressed. For example, although big data/mobile-based communications bring significant benefits (e.g., IANAS 2021 ; NASAC 2021 ) and there have been advances in using mobile technology to deliver climate services for agriculture in Africa (Dayamba et al. 2018 ), more should be done to increase access for small-scale farmers (Mehrabi et al. 2021 ). A digital inclusion agenda is needed for governments and the private sector to increase access to data-driven agriculture.

In addition to generating excellent science, it is vital to reduce the delay in translating research outputs into innovation, public policy and practice (IAP 2018 ). Time lags may arise from negative attitudes associated with perceived risks, from excessive regulatory requirements in some countries or from an absence of regulation in others. This leads to fragmentation in the capture of benefits. For example, there is current heterogeneity in considering whether new plant-breeding techniques – such as those based on genome editing – should be included within older legislation governing genetically modified organisms. Scientific advances are occurring worldwide, e.g., collaborative work in Colombia, Germany, France, the Philippines and the USA to develop rice that is resistant to bacterial blight (Oliva et al. 2019 ; IANAS 2021 ). The controversy created by a situation in which regulatory frameworks are disconnected from robust science is discussed by EASAC ( 2021 ). Figure 1 demonstrates the resulting incoherence that acts to deter science, innovation and competitiveness, creates non-tariff barriers to trade and undermines collective action to enhance food and nutrition security. This may have particular adverse consequences for those already suffering malnutrition; for example, the acceptance of gene-based technologies has been mixed in Africa, even though there may be considerable scientific opportunities for using biotechnology in crop breeding programmes to increase resistance to biotic and abiotic stress and to improve nutrient content and nitrogen use efficiency (NASAC 2021 ).

Variation in the regulation of genome editing for plant breeding

7 Strengthening the Contribution of Research to Policymaking

Alongside action to accelerate investment in agriculture and food systems research (von Braun et al. 2020 ), there must be transdisciplinary integration of priorities at the science-policy interface across all relevant sectors (Fears et al. 2019 ), including agriculture, the environment, health and social care, rural and urban development, and fiscal policy. There must also be linkage of policy at the local, regional and global levels (Fears et al. 2020 ), while taking account of local values and circumstances and recognising the challenges for coordination. One recent example from Asia (Islam and Kieu 2020 ) of developing critical mass in regional policy for climate change and food security discusses criteria for successive steps in policy planning, implementation, cooperation and legal obligation, and observes that the latter two steps often present fundamental barriers to moving from the priorities in a national development agenda to regional coherence. In the African region, the recent Joint Ministerial Declaration and Action Agenda (AU 2020 ) calls upon governments to build greater productive capacity in agriculture and strengthen resilience throughout Africa’s agri-food systems.

Scaling efforts for critical mass requires individual countries to recognise that their policy decisions may have an impact on other countries and regions. For example, some countries export their lack of environmental sustainability by increasing food imports from elsewhere (IAP 2018 ).

Academies and others within the scientific community (STCMG 2020 ) have a key role in overcoming obstacles to effective policy by working together across disciplines to show the value of an inclusive approach, e.g., to the SDGs. Moreover, systematic review of the literature indicates that public support for a policy can be increased by communicating evidence of its effectiveness (Reynolds et al. 2020 ; Fears et al. 2020 ). Therefore, the work of academies in using the evidence base to inform policy development and implementation can help to provide the bridge between policymakers and the public.

What are the implications for the UN FSS? UN FSS discussions have highlighted the place of “game-changers” in driving transformative action, and the scientific community has much to contribute in exploring the potential of game-changers to underpin transformation at the science-policy interface (see AASSA 2021 ). For example, a recent commentary on Action Track 1 Footnote 6 identified some key precepts that can be illustrated by academies’ work at the regional and global levels (Table 2 ).

We suggest that there is an additional game-changer, applicable to all Action Tracks: the development of a new international science advisory Panel on Food and Nutrition Security (IAP 2018 ), with a broad remit for food systems, focused on shaping policy choices and strengthening governance mechanisms. A new Panel, recognising the new opportunities and challenges for food system governance, could help to streamline research efficiency in its linkage to policy action and increase the legitimacy of that science advice by using robust assessment procedures (Global Panel 2020 ). The impetus created by the UN FSS requires the coordination and management of food systems by more sectors of government and stakeholders than had been the case for food security, creating an unprecedented opportunity to develop a framework for greater transparency, accountability and the sharing of knowledge. By consolidating the present myriad, fragmented, array of panels and advisory committees, the proposed international advisory Panel could draw on the large scientific community already working on these topics – including academies – and should be asked to address the most pressing issues for transformative change in the face of the mounting global challenges. Food and nutrition security, particularly for high-risk groups, must be a top priority on every country’s national agenda, yet many countries do not have a national security strategy in place (EIU 2020 ). Furthermore, as already noted, advisory capacities, governance policies, and institutions are sometimes weak at the regional level (AASSA 2021 ; NASAC 2021 ). Thus, in addition to building the critical mass for evaluating complex issues at the global scale, an international advisory Panel could help to drive momentum for a national food system strategy in all countries and engender regional-level initiatives in policy development and implementation.

IAP recommends that the UN FSS now consider options for constituting a new international advisory Panel, so as to make best use of the rapid advances in science, technology and innovation, and to motivate evidence-based policymaking at all levels. IAP and its regional academy networks are eager to be involved.

8 Conclusions

Achieving food and nutrition security worldwide by transforming food systems remains a major challenge, compounded by recent pressures from climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. Actions to promote food systems are relevant to multiple SDGs. It is essential to identify opportunities for synergies and trade-offs while avoiding inadvertent negative consequences, and to engage everybody, in order to enable change. This requires advances in complex food system modelling.

Food systems are diverse and heterogeneous. Continuing research is needed to inform diverse yet equitable solutions for sustainable, healthy diets that are culturally sensitive, focusing on vulnerable groups. That calls for stronger connections between local and international research entities. The opportunities for complex and innovative remote sensing and web-based data should also be explored for this purpose.

Greater transdisciplinarity is needed in research to progress from the current scientific agenda, which is still too often focused on individual components of food systems or on agriculture separate from its environmental context. Social science research must be better integrated with other disciplines, e.g., to understand and inform consumer, farmer and manufacturer behaviours and to guide policies to deliver objectives for social justice. The development of improved methodologies for understanding the attribution of impact is also a critical research priority.

Science is a public good, yet the conduct and use of basic and other research is often fragmented. There is still much to be done to build critical mass worldwide, to share skills and a research infrastructure, and to collaborate in agreeing upon and addressing research priorities and avoiding unnecessary duplication. There is a continued convening role for academies of science to facilitate the exploration of opportunities and tackle the obstacles to research collaboration between disciplines and between the public and private research communities.

There are also opportunities to improve science-policy interfaces and integrate policy development at the local, regional and global levels. One game-changer would be to constitute an international advisory Panel on Food and Nutrition Security with new emphasis on food systems to make better use of the best science to inform, motivate and implement evidence-based policymaking at all levels.

FAO ( 2020 ) “Sustainable food systems and healthy diets in Europe and Central Asia.” ERC/20/2, on www.fao.org/3/nc226en/nc2262n.pdf . This report discusses multiple issues around diversified and sustainable food systems, improving supply chains and reducing food loss and waste.

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Acknowledgements

This IAP Brief was drafted by Robin Fears and Claudia Canales in discussion with Volker ter Meulen. We thank Sheryl Hendriks (NASAC), Elizabeth Hodson (IANAS) and Paul Moughan (AASSA) for their helpful advice.

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Fears, R., Canales, C. (2023). The Role of Science, Technology and Innovation in Transforming Food Systems Globally. In: von Braun, J., Afsana, K., Fresco, L.O., Hassan, M.H.A. (eds) Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15703-5_44

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Plant-Based Meat Alternatives: Technological, Nutritional, Environmental, Market, and Social Challenges and Opportunities

Giulia andreani.

1 Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma, 43124 Parma, Italy

Giovanni Sogari

Alessandra marti.

2 Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences (DeFENS), Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy

Federico Froldi

3 Department of Animal Science, Food and Nutrition (DiANA), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 29122 Piacenza, Italy

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There is a growing awareness that fostering the transition toward plant-based diets with reduced meat consumption levels is essential to alleviating the detrimental impacts of the food system on the planet and to improving human health and animal welfare. The reduction in average meat intake may be reached via many possible ways, one possibility being the increased consumption of plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs). For this reason, in recent years, hundreds of products have been launched on the market with sensory attributes (i.e., taste, texture, appearance, and smell) similar to their animal counterparts; however, these products have often a long list of ingredients and their nutritional values are very different from animal meat. The present review aims to highlight the main opportunities and challenges related to the production and consumption of PBMAs through an interdisciplinary approach. Aspects related to the production technology, nutritional profiles, potential impacts on health and the environment, and the current market and consumer acceptance of PBMAs are discussed. Focusing on the growing literature on this topic, this review will also highlight research gaps related to PBMAs that should be considered in the future, possibly through the collaboration of different stakeholders that can support the transition toward sustainable plant-based diets.

1. Introduction

It is broadly agreed that transitioning away from meat-intensive diets toward increasingly plant-based diets is essential to alleviating the adverse environmental sustainability impacts of the food system and to improving human health and animal welfare. However, our collective meat consumption is still increasing and is projected to keep rising in the coming decade [ 1 ]. To curb the projected global rise in meat consumption, it is argued that a substantial reduction in average meat consumption levels—starting in affluent societies—is critically important.

Meat reduction can be established in various ways: (i) reducing meat portion sizes, (ii) replacing parts of meat-based products with plant-based alternatives (so-called hybrid meats) or applying a “less but better” principle (less quantity, more quality, i.e., more environmentally and/or animal-friendly meat), (iii) leaving the meat out of the dish without a replacement, (iv) replacing meat with another protein source (ranging from animal-based foods, such as eggs or cheese, to plant-derived alternatives, such as legumes, mushrooms, or tofu—not to mention alternative sources of protein with a minimal, i.e., insects and seaweed, or still non-existent market share, i.e., cultured meat), and last but not least, (v) consuming plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) [ 2 , 3 ]. These strategies imply that a flexitarian diet should not be narrowed down to the adoption of (processed) meat alternatives because it is also about substituting meat with other (unprocessed) alternative proteins, both animal- and plant-sourced. Having said this, the broad and varied dietary group of flexitarians is undeniably the key target group of PBMAs and the major group already consuming these products. From the perspective of a flexitarian diet characterized by abstaining from meat (whether this is occasionally, frequently, or often), it is obvious that flexitarians are searching for and interested in meat alternatives to practice their reduced meat foodstyle. Briefly put, there is logic in pointing to flexitarians as launching customers. From the perspective of PBMAs, the dominant market strategy hitherto is to mimic traditional meat as closely as possible in terms of flavor (meaty/savory), texture (mouthfeel), appearance (e.g., “the bleeding burger”), nutritional value (iron, vitamins, etc.), and even product names (using meat-related terms); incidentally, “PBMAs” may also be read as “plant-based meat analogs”. The food industry’s goal to develop meat-like plant-based foods unquestionably facilitates the meat-free choices of many flexitarians and vegetarians and vegans as well, who may feel an aversion to the association with meat surrounding PBMAs.

While food consumers’ adoption and acceptance of PBMAs are not self-evident, as will be shown in the remainder of this review, it seems safe to say that PBMAs facilitate the need of many of today’s food consumers in various high-income countries to be supplied with tasty, affordable, and accessible alternative protein products to satisfy their cravings to eat beyond meat.

Currently, many factors can testify that the field of PBMAs is vibrant and worth being further explored and critically assessed. Among these factors are the remarkable successes of efforts to improve the product qualities of PBMAs in the past few decades and the wide availability of PBMAs on supermarket shelves and in the food service sector (including McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC, having released plant-based alternative versions of beef burgers and chicken nuggets). Furthermore, the substantial investments in the PBMA market, the significant growth figures it is experiencing in frontrunning countries (such as Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands), and its expected growth rates in global sales in the near future are additional elements that can attest to the key role of PBMAs.

This review aims at highlighting the main challenges and opportunities related to the production and consumption of PBMA products, taking into consideration all of the pivotal aspects of designing new food products. Indeed, after a brief excursus on the formulation and production technology of PBMAs (i), the review addresses their nutritional profiles and their potential impacts on health (ii) and the environment (iii), as well as consumers’ choices (iv) and the state of the market (v). Each of the five sections will provide a sketch of the state of affairs, and overall, this article aims to add to other recent reviews [ 4 , 5 ] by critically assessing recent studies from different disciplines in order to highlight the consensus and controversies on this topic from an interdisciplinary perspective.

2. Production Technology of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

Among the earliest examples of meat alternatives, vegetable protein products are traditionally produced and consumed in Asian countries—i.e., tofu and tempeh from soy and seitan from gluten. Unfortunately, these products are not able to replicate the sensory attributes of meat products for Western consumers, who seek vegetable-based products that resemble meat in structure, flavor, and taste. Twenty-first-century meat alternatives have made use of the crosslinking capacity—under certain conditions—of soy proteins from the Asian tradition. Indeed, even today, soy is the main raw material for the production of meat alternatives [ 6 ]. This supremacy undoubtedly depends on the availability of the raw material and the techno-functional attributes of its proteins, including its solubility, its ability to absorb water and oil, and its gelling and emulsifying properties—all important aspects in defining the quality of the finished product [ 7 ]. However, scientific research (and the market) is shifting toward the use of raw materials other than soy because of issues concerning GMOs, allergies, unfavorable climate for soy cultivation, and the preservation and/or valorization of biodiversity. Thus, recent work explored the use of proteins from different raw materials, including peas, fava beans, rapeseeds, and hemp, alone or in combination with soybean [ 8 ]. Regardless of the botanical source, protein isolates—with protein content above 75% (usually close to 90%)—are the most used raw materials [ 9 ].

Protein isolates are produced using wet separation techniques that are often time-consuming, costly, inefficient, and unsustainable, given the high amounts of water, alkalis, acids, or enzymes employed [ 9 ]. Finally, since the functionality of proteins can widely vary depending on the process conditions adopted during protein isolation, the standardization of the technological properties of the isolates is challenging [ 8 ]. Thus, protein isolates are increasingly being replaced by protein concentrates (protein content between approx. 50 and 65%), without neglecting the structural properties required in the finished product [ 10 ]. These high-protein fractions are produced using dry separation processes. The latter type of process is considered more sustainable than wet techniques, as it requires no water or solvents, consumes less energy, and preserves the protein’s native structure instead of forming protein aggregates, thus retaining their technological functionality [ 8 ]. The principle behind the air classification is the different densities of the flour particles, which are richer in starch or proteins. This allows the separation of the flour into a fine protein-rich fraction and a coarse starch-rich fraction as a consequence of the centrifugal and gravitational forces applied during the operation. Therefore, the less-refined protein ingredients obtained with the air classification also contain other components, such as lipids and fibers, which are often included in the formulation of protein-isolate-based products [ 9 ]. Since the lipid and fiber contents in protein concentrates may vary based on the source and processing conditions, the set-up of the air-classification conditions needs to be optimized. So far, there are few examples—albeit with encouraging results—of the application of high-protein fractions obtained using air separation from legumes in the production of meat analogs [ 11 ], suggesting the need for further studies that also use different sources.

In order to expand the range of raw materials that are suitable to be used in the production of meat alternatives and that can maintain the high-quality characteristics of the finished product, various colorants (e.g., leghemoglobin, red beets, red cabbage, etc.) and flavorings (e.g., herbs and spices) have been proposed to reproduce the meat color and flavor profile, as well as to mask the beany off-flavors of some legume proteins. The juiciness, tenderness, and other sensory attributes of meat-like products are also obtained by using fats/oils (such as coconut oil/butter, sunflower oil, canola oil, sesame oil, etc.). However, it is increasingly common to use binding agents (e.g., oleogels, starches, hydrocolloids, or fibers) as fat replacers [ 10 ]. Indeed, high amounts of fat—acting as a lubricant—could interfere with the protein denaturation process, which is the first kind of modification proteins need to undergo in order to obtain a meat-like structure.

The meat-like structure is achieved when the native globular structure of pulse proteins is transformed into a fibrous structure in which proteins are elongated and highly ordered [ 8 ]. This structure can be created using different technologies (including extrusion, flow-induced structuring using a shear cell or a Couette cell, 3D printing, wet-spinning, and electrospinning), the advantages and disadvantages of which were recently summarized by Boukid [ 12 ].

The high productivity, low costs, versatility, energy efficiency, and scale-up potentials of extrusion have led it to be the most widely used technology to produce meat analogs. During this process, raw materials are hydrated and subjected to thermal and mechanical stresses applied during extrusion, and, finally, the product is cooled to room temperature [ 13 ]. As a result of the mechanical stress, the temperature, the pressure, and the final cooling step, proteins undergo a series of structural modifications, ranging from denaturation to unfolding, crosslinking, and alignment, resulting in a fibrous structure that mimics the characteristics of muscle tissues [ 14 ]. These modifications take place in a chamber containing one (i.e., single-screw extruder) or—more commonly—two (i.e., twin-screw extruder) corotating screws that convey the material toward a die that provides the final shape to the product. The extrusion chamber is subdivided into several zones, in which the peculiar profiles of the screws—and, thus, the applied shear—and temperatures cause the material to undergo (from the material inlet to the finished product outlet) mixing, hydration, shearing, homogenization, compression, deaeration, heating, shaping, and expansion. During these operations, proteins are hydrated, unfolded, aligned, and texturized.

Extrusion can be performed at a low moisture level (<30%) to obtain texturized vegetable proteins (TVPs) or at a high moisture level (>50%) to directly obtain meat analogs. When extrusion is carried out at low moisture, the sudden drop in pressure at the end of the extruder causes an immediate expansion of the product due to the rapid evaporation of water. TVPs have a spongy meat-like structure that mimics ground beef or chicken breast. TVPs can take different forms (flakes, chunks, or minced), and, after hydration (and final cooking), they are able to retain their structural integrity and acquire a chewy texture and elasticity, which is typical of meat.

In the case of high-moisture extrusion, a cooling die is connected at the end of the twin-screw extruder to cool the sample at 20 °C, which prevents the expansion and promotion of fiber alignment and stabilization, as is typical of the anisotropic structure desirable for these kinds of products.

Although the use of technologies other than extrusion has shown encouraging results (including high-temperature-induced shearing and 3D printing), some hurdles still need to be addressed before their widespread industrial deployment: cost reduction and/or applicability to a wide range of legume proteins.

3. Nutritional Profiles and Health Impacts of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

Among the several reasons related to the growing demand for meat alternatives, a potential explanation is likely related to the increased knowledge about the negative impacts of diets high in red meat and, above all, processed meat on human health [ 15 ]. This, together with an increased concern for the environmental impacts of animal products compared to their plant-based counterparts, supports the transition toward sustainable healthy diets, which are based on a high intake of plant-based foods and the moderate consumption of animal products [ 16 ].

However, to investigate the potential role of PBMAs on human health, it is critical to analyze the nutritional characteristics of these products, also considering that meat is an essential source of high-quality proteins, iron, vitamins, minerals, and varying amounts of saturated fats depending on the type of meat [ 17 ]. A few studies analyzed the nutritional quality of meat alternatives present in different markets and compared meat alternatives and animal meat in terms of energy and nutrient contents [ 18 , 19 , 20 ].

In this regard, a recent study analyzed the nutritional quality of 269 commercial meat analogs currently sold on the Italian market by retrieving data reported on their food labels [ 19 ]. Large nutritional variability was observed among PBMAs, with plant-based steaks showing significantly higher protein and lower energy, fats, and salt contents compared to other plant-based food categories. Comparing the nutritional information with reference animal meat products, the results showed higher fiber content in all PBMAs. Moreover, plant-based burgers and meatballs had a lower protein content than their meat counterparts, while ready-sliced meat substitutes showed a lower salt content than cured meats.

Similar results were obtained in other studies performed in the US [ 18 ], Sweden [ 20 ], and other European markets [ 12 ]. These studies found lower energy and total and saturated fat contents and higher total carbohydrates, sugars, and fibers in PBMAs compared to meat-based products. On the other hand, salt content showed contrasting results. Furthermore, plant-based and meat-based products generally presented similar amounts of total proteins despite large differences in the contents of single amino acids. As a matter of fact, higher amounts of glutamic acid and cysteine and lower contents of alanine, glycine, and, above all, methionine were identified in PBMAs [ 21 ].

These results support the importance of further exploring the use of plant-based protein blends to reduce differences between plant-based and animal-based meats [ 22 ]. In addition, it is noteworthy that plant-based and animal products also differ in protein digestibility and the bioavailability of single amino acids. Indeed, animal meat showed higher protein digestibility than PBMAs, which, in turn, have a negative impact on amino acid bioavailability. These data suggest the possibility to use specific protein sources with high bioavailability (e.g., soy isolate) and stress the importance of considering the real bioavailability of amino acids when investigating the diet quality of dietary patterns that include these products.

Another interesting aspect to be considered regards micronutrients. Data are often limited on this topic, but previous studies highlighted that PBMAs are a good source of minerals, also reporting a higher iron content compared to meat [ 21 , 23 ]. However, it is important to underline that the absorption and bioavailability of iron from plant-based sources and vegetarian diets are lower compared to omnivorous diets, and this shall be considered in future investigations [ 24 ].

Altogether, these results highlight the importance of carefully evaluating the nutritional impacts of switching from animal meat to PBMAs in order to identify potential at-risk nutrients. With this intention, a recent study compared the omnivore diet with diets in which animal products were substituted with either traditional or novel plant-based foods by using NHANES 2017–2018 data. The risk of inadequacies of specific nutrients (e.g., vitamin B12) was highlighted, especially when novel PBMAs were used [ 25 ]. These results once again support the need to consider the nutritional quality of PBMAs when switching to plant-based diets that exclude the consumption of animal foods.

Another area that deserves further investigation is the evaluation of the impact of replacing animal meat on human health through well-designed human intervention studies. So far, different studies have compared the effects of vegetarian/vegan diets with those of omnivorous diets [ 26 ], but trials specifically focused on PBMAs are still lacking. Yet, due to the publication of study protocols in clinical trial registries (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov), it is reasonable to expect the implementation and publication of trials evaluating the impacts of PBMAs on nutritional and health aspects in the near future. A first attempt was recently made by Crimarco and colleagues [ 27 ], who assessed the effects of plant-based meats on biomarkers of inflammation through a secondary analysis of the Study With Appetizing Plant food—Meat Eating Alternatives Trial (SWAP-MEAT). Contrary to expectations, no improvements in biomarkers of inflammation following plant-based meat consumption were identified. However, further long-term studies focused on a large plethora of health markers are necessary before drawing any conclusions.

4. Environmental Impacts of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

Meat is a protein food of high biological value; however, the conversion of feed and fodder into animal protein may not be sustainable due to inputs and the use of limited natural resources [ 28 ]. Currently, several farming systems of meat production exist, with the production efficiency per unit of a product depending mainly on feeding, breeds, management, and the technology employed [ 29 , 30 ]. Fewer resources per product unit are required for crop growth, which leads these products to represent an interesting opportunity for sustainable development while meeting the increasing demand for food [ 31 ]. Thus, in developed countries not relying on subsistence animal breeding, PBMAs could bring environmental benefits in terms of biodiversity, land and water use, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [ 32 , 33 ].

Nonetheless, the environmental impacts of PBMAs still need to be assessed. In this regard, the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach has been applied. It is a methodology used in various contexts to quantify the environmental impacts of a product based on the ISO 14040 [ 34 ] and ISO 14044 [ 35 ] standards to improve its environmental performance [ 36 ].

Several LCA studies were conducted on PBMAs to detect hotspots in the production process and to compare environmental performances with animal-based products. Indicators such as climate change, land, water, and energy use were considered.

In this regard, Bryant [ 37 ] analyzed 43 studies and concluded that the production of meat analogs is more sustainable when compared to animal products. At the same time, Detzel et al. [ 38 ] stated that PBMAs could help reduce the environmental impacts related to food consumption by overcoming the complexity of the processing stage of ingredients—which has a significant environmental impact—and by optimizing the inputs required to produce protein ingredients (i.e., legumes, trying to stabilize their yields, the main problem in their cultivation) [ 39 ]. Nevertheless, Smetana et al. [ 40 ] reported that the technology employed (i.e., machinery and process equipment) might be a valuable opportunity to improve the sustainability of alternative protein source production. A detailed LCA study by Mejia et al. [ 41 ] on three factories producing 57 different types of meat analogs achieved low GHG emissions, mainly due to the manufacturing process, followed by the agricultural production of food ingredients and their transportation. According to Goldstein et al. [ 42 ], the production stage accounts for 80% of the environmental impact due to the use of electricity from fossil sources; however, alternative energy solutions could mitigate this impact.

In-depth studies are needed since contrasting data are ascribed to energy consumption derived from the use of proxy processes for the implemented energy sources [ 37 ]. Within the meat supply chain, meat production and animal husbandry are the most impactful stages [ 43 ]. Nevertheless, manure production, subsequently applied to the soil, spares the need for chemical fertilizer, contributes to crop yield, and maintains soil fertility. On the other hand, legumes do not require nitrogen fertilization due to their ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and at the root level [ 44 ]. This leads to lower N 2 O and NH 3 emissions due to the non-use of manure and/or synthetic fertilizers.

Several studies have considered the impact of meat and meat analogs on the water used and the effects on eutrophication and acidification. In a study comparing patties with and without meat, Smetana et al. [ 45 ] estimated lower acidification and subsequent aquatic eutrophication for PBMAs. Similar conclusions were obtained by Heller et al. [ 46 ], who showed lower water use for plant-based patties. However, guidelines for water modeling are needed to avoid misleading interpretations based on erroneous comparisons.

Lusk et al. [ 47 ] produced a model to study both the economic and environmental effects of the use of alternative plant products over meat in the US. The reforestation of cropland and pastureland, as well as the conversion of land for crops grown for livestock feeding to crops for plant-based products, would result in the sequestration of 0.43 megatons of CO 2 per year. The results imply an increase in crop yields to compensate for the reduction in available cropland. At the European level, Saget et al. [ 48 ] found a reduction in human–animal competition for land use for pea protein production and an 89% lower global warming potential. In more detail, in Germany, a 5% substitution of beef with pea proteins could lead to a 1% reduction in annual CO 2 emissions. However, it is important to assert that agricultural activities impact 9.9% of global greenhouse gas emissions [ 49 ]. There could be scenarios of increased arable land to fulfill the growth of alternative meat products, even when deforestation is limited through environmental policies. The extensification of palm plantations in humid tropical countries could be an example, with an increased demand for coconut oil as an ingredient in plant-based beef substitutes [ 42 ].

It can be concluded that, still, few LCA studies have quantified the environmental impacts of meat alternatives, and many limitations related to the application of the methodology need to be addressed. Relevant considerations are that (i) PBMAs are highly processed foods, and thus, impacts associated with the use of different forms of energy counteract the low environmental impact associated with the production of plant-based ingredients [ 41 ]; (ii) the building of databases for the productive process of complex (multi-ingredient) foods should be a relevant point to focus on; (iii) a functional unit that does not consider the mass of a product but integrates primary nutrients should be implemented, along with a feature required when comparing LCA results from different studies/products [ 48 , 50 ]; (iv) the sustainability of PBMA production must take into consideration good agricultural practices, such as crop rotation, fertilizer, plant protection, and water use [ 38 ].

5. Consumer Behavior of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

In the realm of meat alternatives, despite technological innovations and efforts to design processed plant-based products from different sources, one of the main challenges in successfully replacing animal prom ducts with plant-based ingredients is the re-creation of similar meat sensory properties. Moreover, communication about these new products and individual attributes (e.g., attitude and demographics) should be taken into consideration during the marketing stage—especially in those countries where meat and meat-based products have a key role in consumers’ minds, in terms of habits, culinary traditions, and culture [ 5 , 51 ]. Therefore, both sensory and consumer science can play an important role in understanding how consumers perceive PBMAs, including drivers of and barriers to their acceptance.

First, past studies showed that perceived sensory attributes and consumer acceptance are strongly influenced by the choice of plant/protein sources [ 52 , 53 ]. Therefore, what ingredients to use as a replacement for meat is an important factor to consider in the development of meat alternatives [ 54 ]. Early product developments mimicking processed meat products, for example, those from mycoproteins, have low sensory acceptance in terms of taste and texture [ 55 ]. This results in a low willingness to include such products as a real meat substitute for meat eaters [ 56 ]. As mentioned above, until a few years ago, the first generation of these products was mostly designed for vegetarians and vegans [ 55 , 57 , 58 ]. To achieve acceptability by a wider audience of meat eaters, the new generation of PBMAs shall be developed in a way that texture, appearance, aroma, and taste resemble those of equivalent authentic meat products, before, during, and after cooking [ 5 , 57 ]. Yet, reproducing the complex and delicate sensory profile of farmed meat can be challenging [ 14 , 59 ]. For instance, the color of plant-based products may diminish due to light or oxygen exposure, or the taste could be affected by lipid oxidation and cause undesirable characteristics [ 52 ]. Considering that the appearance of a product is generally the first element to be assessed, it is a critical determinant in food acceptance. Another challenge for these PBMAs is to recall the flavor of real meat while avoiding unpleasant flavors (e.g., bitter, burnt, and earthy) caused by the high level of legume protein [ 5 ]. Therefore, the need to mimic meat characteristics requires the use of many additives in the development stage [ 5 ]. As a result, the product packaging of PBMAs often includes a long list of unfamiliar ingredients [ 19 ], which could convey a sense of processed and unhealthy food among consumers. In particular, PBMAs that are high/ultra-processed could be associated with a certain unnaturalness of the product [ 60 ]. Thus, while reducing the gap between the sensory profiles of PBMAs and their meat equivalents might be important for some companies, the concept of product acceptance goes beyond merely sensory appreciation, including consumers’ perceptions. For example, low product familiarity with PBMAs—including the preparation/cooking method—is one of the most important product-related factors associated with consumer acceptance. This could potentially limit the expansion to the mainstream consumer market. Therefore, fully understanding consumers’ acceptance of PBMAs should require individuals to have a direct experience [ 4 ].

The most investigated meat category in consumer studies, including sensory tests, is burgers [ 53 , 61 , 62 , 63 ]. The reason is that traditional burgers are one of the most popular meat forms due to their composition (e.g., rich in proteins and fats), market availability, convenience, affordability, and sensory qualities [ 64 , 65 ]. Results consistently indicate that respondents generally prefer traditional meat products over their plant-based alternatives. For example, Grasso et al. [ 62 ] showed that individuals had higher sensory expectations for a beef burger than for a plant-based or hybrid patty; however, in terms of acceptability and purchase intentions, the hybrid one (60% beef and 40% vegetables) was the most preferred after the tasting.

In general, product familiarity is also often associated with higher acceptance. For instance, another study by Caputo et al. [ 53 ], which included a choice experiment with a blind–informed sensory study, showed that the beef burger, which had the highest degree of familiarity, also received the highest willingness to pay (WTP) compared to two PBMAs and one hybrid burger. They also found that, in the informed group, the preference and WTP for the plant-based patty labeled as “made with animal-like protein” exceeded those for the hybrid burger (70% beef and 30% mushrooms) and the plant-based burger “made with pea protein”. As reported by several studies, low prices of non-meat protein sources may act as a driver to accept such products [ 66 ]; however, it will probably take some years to reach price parity with traditional meat [ 4 ].

Regarding demographics, habits, and attitudinal factors, being pro-health, pro-sustainability, and young leads to higher acceptability toward PBMAs compared to other consumer segments [ 5 ]. For these reasons, health and environmental sustainability benefits could be included among the main drivers to try such products [ 66 ]. For instance, in a study by Sogari et al. [ 51 ], motivations to process both sustainability and nutrition information were a strong determinant driving the likelihood to purchase a hybrid meat–mushroom burger among US students. Other impacting factors could be the attitude toward meat analogs [ 67 ] and, more generally, consumer attitude toward food innovation [ 51 ]. On the other hand, the main personal-related barriers to acceptability are related to food and food technology neophobia [ 4 , 5 ], attachment to meat, and lower situational appropriateness of consuming non-meat protein sources [ 66 ].

Several studies have shown that heavy meat eaters might be less willing to substitute meat products for plant-based alternatives than flexitarians [ 68 , 69 ]. However, other studies suggested that the greater the number of consumers who are already familiar with plant-based products, the fewer the individuals who will seek products that are similar to meat from a sensory point of view [ 5 ]. This could be explained by the fact that vegetarians and vegans are not seeking meat sensory properties in plant-based products [ 70 ].

Finally, more knowledge about consumer acceptance of PBMAs is also helpful for legislators. For instance, in the EU, policymakers support the production and promotion of alternative meat substitutes and hybrid products by funding research programs toward more sustainable and alternative proteins, such as the Farm to Fork Strategy in the European Union [ 71 ]. Thus, understanding how consumers perceive such products is challenging for the food system, and developing meat alternatives with high consumer appeal requires the full integration of sensory and consumer research.

6. Market Analysis of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

Given that the latest market trends of plant-based meat alternatives have not been deeply investigated, we conducted market research to identify the current direction of these products. Retailers and industries could benefit from the data retrieved from this analysis to design new products (in terms of ingredients, claims, labeling, etc.) to better shape their market strategies.

To analyze market trends of PBMAs, we used Mintel’s Global New Product Database (GNPD) [ 72 ], an online database for new products launched in selected countries. The same database was previously used in other research. For instance, several authors employed Mintel’s GNPD to investigate front-of-package information, food labeling schemes, ingredient profiles, and new launches of alternative meat products in the global market [ 65 , 73 , 74 , 75 ].

The objective of our analysis was to use the Mintel database to extract and explore different information on the latest market trends of PBMAs. In order to have an overview of recent years, we searched for new meat alternative launches over the past three years (from January 2019 to December 2021). The dataset was extracted on 26 October 2022, and the search strategy is described in Appendix A ( Table A1 ).

The research returned 5155 results in the form of a spreadsheet, where each column reported different information, such as ingredients, claims, and nutritional values per 100 g. After cleaning the dataset to remove non-meat alternatives (e.g., fish or egg alternatives) using keywords (e.g., seafood, salmon, tuna, and egg) in the “Product” and “Description” columns, the final dataframe was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

During the past three years (2019–2021), the market of PBMAs has seen a remarkable spike in product launches, with 4965 products released worldwide. In more detail, Figure 1 shows the solid growth of PBMAs at the beginning of 2020—when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out—and a slight drop at the end of 2021. This change could be explained by common short-term reductions in meat intake during zoonotic outbreaks, as the same happened for SARS-CoV in 2003 and the African Swine Flu in 2019 (Attwood and Hajat, 2020). Thus, this meat intake reduction could have led consumers to look for new alternatives at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. Nevertheless, despite the modest negative trend during the third and fourth quarters of 2021, the overall direction of PBMA launches is positively growing, and this new dietary pattern could represent an opportunity to foster these products. More precisely, this positive market trend is mostly focused on the introduction of new products ( n = 1822; 36.7%) and new varieties ( n = 1910; 38.5%) of PBMAs. The remaining launches ( n = 1232; 24.8%) include new packaging, re-launches, and new formulations.

Number of PBMAs’ launches ( n = 4965—green bar), new varieties ( n = 1910—orange bar), new products ( n = 1822—gray bar), new packaging ( n = 1822—yellow bar), re-launches ( n = 386—blue bar), and new formulations ( n = 58—black bar) launched worldwide over the past three years (2019–2021). Abbreviations: PBMAs, plant-based meat alternatives.

It is also important to highlight that, despite the market for PBMA products experiencing increasing growth, the global market revenue of plant-based meat substitutes is forecast to be worth USD 33.99 billion in 2027 (Global: Meat Substitutes Market Revenue 2016–2027|Statista, 2022), while the meat sector is expected to be valued at USD 1354 billion by 2027 (Global Meat Industry Value Projection, 2021–2027|Statista, 2022). Thus, the market share of PBMAs is, and is estimated to remain, significantly lower than that of the meat market.

Considering the 2019–2021 period, new PBMA products were mostly launched in France, with 417 new launches (8.4%), followed by the UK ( n = 393; 7.9%) and Germany ( n = 391; 7.9%). The top twelve most active markets in this sector are represented in Figure 2 . This figure underlines that European and northern American countries, along with Brazil and Australia, have been more active in launching plant-based meat alternatives during the past few years, showing an increasing interest in meat substitutes in these countries.

Twelve most active countries in PBMA launches over the past three years (2019–2021). Note: Each bar represents the total number of PBMAs’ launches between January 2019 and December 2021. Abbreviations: PBMAs, plant-based meat alternatives.

In the global market, the most represented food categories were general plant-based proteins ( n = 1469; 29.6%)—meaning foods that do not intend to mimic an existing meat product (e.g., burgers, sausages, nuggets, or meatballs) but can still be considered meat substitutes, as they are protein-rich plant foods (e.g., “teriyaki tofu” and “fried gluten with peanuts”)—and patty/burger alternatives ( n = 1331; 26.8%). Every other food category alone—such as sausage, mince, or nugget alternatives—does not represent more than 9% of the total launches, as illustrated in Figure 3 .

Food category distribution of PBMAs launched over the past three years (2019–2021). Abbreviations: PBMAs, plant-based meat alternatives.

In terms of the highest sales value in EUR and the growth rate, according to a recent study of the Smart Protein project [ 76 ] using Nielsen Retail Scanning Data, the UK and Germany lead the sector of PBMAs, i.e., sausages, burger patties, and cold cuts. However, differences in the categories exist between countries; for example, plant-based sausages lead the market segment in the UK, whereas, in Germany, the top category is plant-based refrigerated meat (burger patties, nuggets, minced, etc.), followed by plant-based cold cuts and meat spreads and plant-based sausages.

Regarding the ingredients, we used the data from Mintel to identify which foods are most widely used as the first ingredient. When water was reported to be the first element in the list ( n = 1605; 32.3%), we considered the second one. Using this strategy, we identified 1914 products (38.6%) containing soy-based components —e.g., soybean curd, proteins, or flour—as the first ingredient. After soy , wheat ( n = 520; 10.5%) and other pulses ( n = 702; 14.1%), such as kidney beans, black beans, peas, chickpeas, and lentils, were predominantly used as the first ingredient, followed by mushrooms ( n = 134; 2.7%) and jackfruit ( n = 86; 1.7%).

In terms of information provided on the packaging, a total of 120 different claims were identified. Out of 4965 products, 2849 (57%) included the “Vegan/No Animal Ingredients” claim, and 2099 (42%) reported the “Plant Based” claim. In addition, in line with Cutroneo et al. [ 19 ], the most common nutrition claim was the “High/Added Protein” statement ( n = 1616; 33%). A graphic presentation of the claims is represented in Figure 4 .

Word cloud of the top 20 claims employed in PBMA products launched over the past three years (2019–2021). Abbreviations: PBMA, plant-based meat alternative. Note: A word cloud is a visual representation of word frequency and value. The “Social Media” claim indicates the presence on the packaging of a logo/claim to entice consumers to join the company’s social media community and follow its channel/website.

Finally, Mintel’s Global New Product Database has been a practical tool to obtain a global overview of PBMA market trends. The data retrieved and analyzed from the database showed that plant-based meat alternatives can widely differ in terms of the food category, ingredients, and/or claims. However, despite these several variations, the increasing trend in product launches—especially in Western countries—highlights a promising global trend to support the transition toward a plant-based diet. However, as previously highlighted in this section, market share differences between the meat and PBMA sectors are still notable, and meat revenue forecasts do not foresee any declining trends. These data underline that the growing market of meat substitutes does not significantly affect the meat market. Therefore, PBMAs are still weak substitutes for animal-based products, as they are often complementary to meat rather than meat replacers [ 77 ]. Previous studies also showed that regular meat consumers are less likely to choose plant-based items over beef than people declaring that they follow different diets (e.g., vegan, flexitarian, or vegetarian) [ 78 ]. Thus, in order to support a dietary shift toward meat reduction, it is critical to study and test strategies that could steer meat eaters’ choices toward plant-based diets and support the growing market of PBMAs.

7. Discussion and Conclusions

Plant-based foods that replace animal foods, such as meat, but also dairy, and even fish and eggs, are gaining increased attention as possible substitutes that can facilitate the transition toward sustainable healthy diets. The idea of processing plant-based ingredients to obtain protein-based foods is not a new concept for consumers since many products, such as tempeh, tofu, and seitan, have been available on the market for hundreds of years [ 4 ], especially in Asian countries. However, these products were not intended to be meat substitutes per se and have never become mainstream in Western countries. A possible explanation could be that these products have mostly been targeted at vegetarians or vegans without any explicit reference to their animal counterparts.

Nevertheless, the development of the so-called “meat alternatives” sector is gaining more and more attention due to growing concerns over the environmental impacts of the food system [ 5 ] and the increasing awareness of the detrimental impacts of high meat consumption on human health [ 79 ].

In the last several years, hundreds of meat-like substitutes, such as plant-based burgers, have been developed and launched globally on the market to imitate the traditional beef burger using either 100% plant-based ingredients or a mix of both meat and plant-based ingredients, i.e., “hybrid meat products”. Although this latter category is not suitable for vegetarians and vegans, these hybrid meat alternatives could exploit consumer barriers to PBMAs (e.g., low sensory quality) and lead to the first approach to reducing meat consumption.

The growing demand for PBMAs has driven the development of ground-breaking process technologies and novel ingredients that can help to obtain products with meat-like sensory attributes that have the potential to attract non-vegetarian consumers [ 52 ]. However, many of these new meat alternatives are highly complex products in terms of ingredients/formulations and require technological investments [ 80 ]. For instance, one limitation of using plant proteins as meat substitutes is the challenge of preserving the shape while dealing with the high risk of crumbling [ 56 ]. For this reason, as of now, most of these proteins have been employed either as a meat ingredient substitute (e.g., in the shape of mince) or as parts of food products (pizza, sauces, etc.) and have not been consumed on their own [ 55 ]. Currently, a new line of familiar alternatives to traditional meat products or dishes, such as imitation-meat burgers, has been launched in supermarkets and restaurants [ 81 ].

While targeting young flexitarians and omnivores is seen as the key to ensuring growing sales of plant-based meat alternatives in the future [ 82 , 83 ], there is still the need to investigate whether and how the sensory appeal will be a barrier for the second generation of plant-based meat alternatives among these consumers [ 5 ].

To achieve acceptability among non-vegetarian consumers, plant-based foods should resemble the texture, flavor, appearance, aroma, and taste of authentic meat products. However, the long list of unfamiliar ingredients used to mimic meat sensory properties leads to different nutrition values of these products compared to animal meats. As a result, even if PBMAs are similar to meat in terms of sensory experience, they cannot be considered a nutritional replacement for animal products [ 4 ]. Thus, further studies are needed not only to monitor the nutritional quality of new plant-based meat products on the market but also to investigate the impact of this substitution on human health markers. In addition, adequate nutritional education programs to improve consumers’ knowledge and awareness about the differences between animal- and plant-based products are required [ 19 ].

Moreover, the discussion on whether manufacturers should describe PBMA products using references to their animal counterparts (e.g., “tastes like meat”), which could create positive expectations for meat consumers [ 5 , 62 ], is still under debate. Specifically, after the recent commercial success of several PBMAs, a strong debate has started on how to label/name such products. For example, in the EU, a regulation clarifying whether “meat-sounding” labels for PBMAs should be allowed does not exist yet. This outcome will probably impact consumer preferences, as shown in a recent study by Demartini et al. [ 84 ], in which consumers’ perceptions of tastiness and healthiness and their willingness to buy plant-based meatballs were negatively affected by the vegan labeling.

As we reported, the sector of PBMAs is launching products on the market that mimic their animal counterparts, and the term “meat substitutes” seems to imply that people will stop eating meat [ 4 ]; however, it is more likely that individuals will consume both traditional and non-traditional meat alternatives. In this scenario, PBMAs may be a useful tool to reduce animal products, especially for populations that consume too much animal meat according to dietary recommendations. We might also expect PBMAs to be regarded as an intermediate phase on our way to (semi-)plant-based diets, in which unprocessed plant-based foods and recipes would take center stage. Achieving this kind of diet would mean that our food habits have really gone beyond meat.

Finally, future studies should consider calls for collaboration, particularly among stakeholders of the food supply chain (i.e., industries and food services) and the scientific community (i.e., nutritionists and dietitians, food technologists, and consumers scientists), to facilitate the transition toward healthier and more sustainable plant-based protein sources.

Search criteria considered in Mintel database.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, D.M. and G.S.; visualization, G.A.; writing—original draft preparation, G.A., F.F., H.D., A.M., D.M. and G.S.; writing—review and editing G.A., F.F., H.D., A.M., D.M. and G.S.; supervision, G.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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In this era of climate change and food/water/natural resource crises, it is important that current advancements in technology are made taking into consideration the impact on humanity and the environment. This new volume, Food Technology: Applied Research and Production Techniques , in the Innovations in Agricultural and Biological Engineering book series, looks at recent developments and innovations in food technology and sustainable technologies. Advanced topics in the volume include food processing, preservation, nutritional analysis, quality control and maintenance as well as good manufacturing practices in the food industries. The chapters are highly focused reports to help direct the development of current food- and agriculture-based knowledge into promising technologies.

• provides information on relevant technology
• makes suggestions for equipment and devices
• looks at standardization in food technology
• explores new and innovative packaging technology
• studies antimicrobial activities in food
• considers active constituents of foods and provides information about isolation, validation and characterization of major bioactive constituents
• discusses the effect of laws and regulatory guidelines on infrastructure to transform technology into highly value-added products

Food Technology: Applied Research and Production Techniques will be a very useful reference book for food technologists, practicing food engineers, researchers, professors, students of these fields and professionals working in food technology, food science, food processing, and nutrition.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part | 49  pages, good manufacturing practices and research in food technology, chapter 1 | 26  pages, good manufacturing practices for food processing industries: principles and practical applications, chapter 2 | 21  pages, research planning and funding agencies: focus on food engineering, part | 72  pages, latest food technologies, chapter 3 | 10  pages, food industry: use of plastics of the twenty-first century, chapter 4 | 35  pages, thermal processing in food technology: latest trends, chapter 5 | 24  pages, non-destructive technique of soft x-ray for evaluation of internal quality of agricultural produce, part | 109  pages, role of antioxidants in foods, chapter 6 | 21  pages, in vitro antioxidant efficacy: selected medicinal plants of gujarat, chapter 7 | 16  pages, antioxidant activities of some marine algae: case study from india, chapter 8 | 50  pages, omega-3 pufa from fish oil: silver based solvent extraction, chapter 9 | 19  pages, anti-oxidant and anti- bacterial properties of extracts: terminalia chebula and terminalia bellerica, part | 38  pages, antimicrobial activities in food, chapter 10 | 17  pages, in vitro antimicrobial activity: salvadora species, chapter 11 | 18  pages, antimicrobial properties of leaf extract: polyalthia longifolia var. pendula under in-vitro conditions, part | 77  pages, active constituents of foods, chapter 12 | 39  pages, isolation, validation and characterization of major bioactive constituents from mango ripe seed, chapter 13 | 17  pages, isolation and characterization of lycopene from tomato and its biological activity, chapter 14 | 17  pages, food processing using microbial control system: shea butter.

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Research review offers insights for transforming the food sector

by Enayat Moallemi, CSIRO

We're facing rising food insecurity, the cost-of-living squeeze, and ever-changing climate events. It's no wonder our food systems are in urgent need of a reboot.

Research, published in in One Earth , highlights what can be learned from other transitions. This includes how we can effect change, and establish new partnerships to support food system transformations.

Sustainable food futures

Food systems don't just put meals on the table. They also contribute significantly to the economy and the livelihoods of communities. However, climate disruptions and other factors present a challenge. They contribute to increased food costs and the cost-of-living crisis in general. The redirection of food systems towards more sustainable, equitable and nutritious future models is often referred to as 'transformation."

The need to transform Australia's food system was a focal point of a recent parliamentary inquiry into safeguarding the nation's food security. Findings from the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021, the subsequent dialogues in the Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment in 2023, and the most recent UN Climate Change Conference in 2023 , reinforce the urgency of the task.

Roadblocks to food system transformation

A major challenge to transformative change is that components of our food systems are locked into unsustainable practices. Large-scale food production is linked to almost 80% of global deforestation and 70% of freshwater use.

High food volumes have been achieved by intensifying yields at ever lower costs. In addition, there are various players that currently dominate food systems. They have significant incentives to maintain existing unsustainable practices.

Secondly, technological interventions seeking to optimize farming practices have had unintended consequences. The Green Revolution of the 1960s focused on technological research and development to address poverty and food insecurity in developing countries. However, it also resulted in negative consequences. These included environmental degradation and social inequities due to geography and local capacity.

Thirdly, ambitious solutions—particularly those requiring rapid, widespread, and significant change—are frequently unfeasible in the short-term. They rely on public acceptance, institutional capacity, political tenability, and land availability.

Consider changing diets. This depends on rapid behavioral change in the eating habits of billions of people globally, while overcoming strong cultural and social norms. There is a natural unwillingness to sacrifice in the short term, in order to achieve higher goals in the long term.

Emerging approaches to food systems transformation

Approaches to transformative change and its complexities in food systems are still emerging. Transformation of our food systems can be informed by research and practice in other domains. This work is more progressed in areas such as industries' decarbonization.

We can learn how to address complex food system challenges by analyzing different examples from different contexts. There are three obvious areas of overlap.

There is an opportunity to align initiatives in ways that reinforce and catalyze food system transformation. For example, some of the challenges in the grocery retail sector in Australia have been attributed to consumer behavior, labor shortages, and disruptions to supply chains.

Addressing these challenges requires multiple processes to co-align in a way that catalyzes further change. This includes overcoming economic barriers, and changing the institutions that perpetuate current systems. All this needs to occur while harnessing emerging innovation such as shifts in lifestyle and the development of new markets to offer consumers greater choice.

Integration

Solutions for sustainability transitions in a range of sectors all point to the need for more integrated approaches. Pressure for land use change can arise from conflicting goals, such as food and fuel production and the risk we may compromise Australia's food security in the process.

Integrated assessments for Sustainable Development Goals teach us to balance solutions without compromising food security. They also offer insights on building resilience.

Experimentation

Australian food systems are neither fully global nor entirely local. This is thanks, in part, to the COVID pandemic, war and conflict in various regions, and an ongoing string of climate events. All of these factors, from local to global, influence our food systems and render it vulnerable in its current state.

Model-based experiments, which use simulations to replicate real-world conditions, can help identify solutions for making food systems resilient to emerging challenges. Social learning experiments show that trying diverse, parallel innovations can help identify and test multiple feasible solutions. Additionally, we can learn from their resilience during future crises.

The growth of the organic food market during the 1990s is an example of experimentation through which businesses learned about consumer demand, preferences, and motives.

Paving the way for sustainable food systems

These three approaches, drawing on existing research and learning, provide us with a handy shortcut to get the ball rolling. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is still much work to be done for learning and informing food system transformations.

New institutions are likely to be required to guide future food system transformations by building new knowledge and learning from past transformations.

Food System Horizons is seeking to implement the findings of the extensive consultation undertaken in building the Reshaping Australian Food Systems roadmap.

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• Open access
• Published: 28 June 2024

Genome-wide association analysis identify candidate genes for feed efficiency and growth traits in Wenchang chickens

• Keqi Cai 1 , 2 ,
• Ranran Liu 2 ,
• Limin Wei 3 ,
• Xiuping Wang 4 ,
• Huanxian Cui 2 ,
• Jie Wen 2 ,
• Yuxiao Chang 1 &
• Guiping Zhao 2 , 3  

BMC Genomics volume  25 , Article number:  645 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Wenchang chickens are one of the most popular local chicken breeds in the Chinese chicken industry. However, the low feed efficiency is the main shortcoming of this breed. Therefore, there is a need to find a more precise breeding method to improve the feed efficiency of Wenchang chickens. In this study, we explored important candidate genes and variants for feed efficiency and growth traits through genome-wide association study (GWAS) analysis.

Estimates of genomic heritability for growth and feed efficiency traits, including residual feed intake (RFI) of 0.05, average daily food intake (ADFI) of 0.21, average daily weight gain (ADG) of 0.24, body weight (BW) at 87, 95, 104, 113 days of age (BW87, BW95, BW104 and BW113) ranged from 0.30 to 0.44. Important candidate genes related to feed efficiency and growth traits were identified, such as PLCE1, LAP3, MED28, QDPR, LDB2 and SEL1L3 genes.

The results identified important candidate genes for feed efficiency and growth traits in Wenchang chickens and provide a theoretical basis for the development of new molecular breeding technology.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Poultry production is an important entreprise worldwide. Chicken is considered a healthy white meat source that is lower in fat, calories and cholesterol than other red meat sources [ 1 ]. In recent years, the promotion of white meat consumption has gradually become a trend [ 2 ]. As an important part of the white meat market, chickens represent an efficient and inexpensive source of animal protein [ 3 ]. Since the 1980s, with the continuous development of modern broiler production, China has become the second largest country in the world in terms of chicken production and consumption [ 4 ]. The main breeds of chickens are native breeds and broilers [ 5 ]. Wenchang chicken (Fig.  1 ) is one of the most popular chicken breeds in the local chicken industry, originating from Hainan Island in the South China Sea and has been raised for 400 years. It is famous for its excellent meat quality and is one of the four famous dishes from Hainan [ 6 ]. It’s an economic mainstay of animal husbandry in Hainan Province, with an annual output of nearly 100 million chickens and a total output value of 1.78 billion dollars in 2020 [ 7 ].

Picture for Wenchang chicken. ( a ), roosters ( b ), hens

However, the primary shortcoming of Wenchang chickens is their low feed efficiency [ 8 ]. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find a more reliable breeding method to improve the feed efficiency of Wenchang chickens. Feed represents more than 70% of the total cost of poultry production, and improving feed efficiency has consistently been the goal of any chicken breeding strategy [ 9 ]. Feed efficiency is contingent upon the relation between the feed intake (FI) and the growth (or bodyweight gain) of an animal and is quantified by several indexes, such as RFI and feed conversion rate (FCR) [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Feed efficiency is influenced by several factors, including the breed and its sex, age, diet, and management [ 13 , 14 ].The RFI is an important index measuring feed efficiency, and it is defined as the difference between the actual and expected feed intake [ 15 ].In 1963, the concept of RFI was first proposed in beef cattle research [ 16 ], and it was first applied to chickens by Luiting in 1991 [ 17 ], covering the calculation methods of RFI, heritability calculation, and the phenotypic and genetic correlations with relevant traits. Since RFI reflects the variation in feed efficiency, it appears to be independent of growth traits [ 15 ]. Studies have shown that RFI is moderately heritable in poultry [ 12 , 18 ]. The study by Bai et al. demonstrates that selecting for low RFI can improve poultry feed efficiency without compromising growth performance [ 19 ]. Growth traits are key in poultry breeding, and the properties of growth traits need to be considered in breeding for feed efficiency. In recent years, GWAS has been applied in poultry to explore the association between host genetics and economic traits [ 20 ]. Earlier studies identified candidate genes including NSUN3 , EPHA6 , and AGK for broilers RFI, while LAP3 was identified as a candidate gene for broiler body weight [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. By deeply studying the functions and regulatory mechanisms of these genes, our aim is to provide more efficient and sustainable solutions for the chicken breeding technologies [ 4 ].

In the breeding process of this study, the focus will be on maintaining the excellent meat quality while moderately improving the feed efficiency and growth rate. The objectives of this study were (1) to determine the inheritance pattern of feed efficiency and growth traits to provide a basis for formulating a better breeding method for Wenchang chickens, and (2) to find key variants affecting feed efficiency and growth traits of Wenchang chickens and also to elucidate the molecular mechanism of feed efficiency and growth traits.

Materials and methods

Experimental birds.

The study uses 1,547 chickens hatched and raised by Hainan Tanniu Wenchang Chicken Co., Ltd. These birds are from a commercial line of Wenchang chicken selected for 18 generations. All birds were raised in three-tier battery cages (one bird per cage) under the same management and nutritional conditions. The diet was formulated based on the National Research Council (NRC) requirements [ 27 ] and the Feeding Standards of Chickens established by the Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing, China [ 28 ]. The chickens were raised from 87 to 113 days to collect data on individual phenotypes.

The phenotypes measured in this study included body weight and feed intake of chickens.

For body weight measurements, an electronic scale with a precision of 0.1 g was utilized. The trough was emptied of any remaining feed 12 h prior to weighing, and body weights were recorded at 87, 95, 104, and 113 days of age.

Feed intake in this experiment was recorded for 26 days. Fresh feed was added at a fixed time every day and recorded. In addition to the above measured phenotypes, the phenotypes calculated from the measured phenotypes included FI, ADFI, ADG, Metabolic weight in the middle of the test (MWT), and RFI.

RFI, g/d: The RFI was obtained from the multiple regression equation of average daily feed intake and metabolic weight in the middle of the test and average daily weight gain [ 18 ]. The equation was as follows:

where ADFI represents the mean average daily feed intake, µ is the intercept, sex is a fixed effect, MWT and ADG are as defined above, β1 and β2 represent the partial regression coefficient.

Genotyping, imputation, and quality control (QC)

At 112 days of age, 2 mL of blood was collected from the wing vein, placed in an anticoagulant tube containing EDTA-K2, mixed, and stored at -20℃ until later analysis. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood samples with the phenol-chloroform method. Genotyping was conducted with a customized chicken 55 K SNP array (Beijing Compass Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China) [ 29 ]. QC of the generated genotype data was achieved using PLINK (V2.0) ( https://www.cog-genomics.org/plink/2.0/ ) software. The specific process setting the individual genotype detection rate at ≥ 90%, single SNP detection rate at ≥ 90%, minimum allele frequency (MAF) of 95%, and retention of SNPs on autosomes 1–28. A total of 45,278 SNPs in 1,479 chickens (762 males and 717 females) passed the QC. Whole genome resequencing of 247 individuals from the 1,479 Wenchang chickens, including 25 males and 222 females was carried out. The sequencing generated 150 bp paired end reads on an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform with the average depth of approximately 10×, at the Shenzhen BGI Co., Ltd. The QC standards were as follows: setting the detection rate of individual genotype at ≥ 90%, the detection rate of single SNP site at ≥ 90%, a MAF of 95%, and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) at P  < 0.000001. A total of 12,590,784 autosomal SNPs in 247 individuals were passed the QC.

Beagle 5.2 software was used to impute the 55 K chip data to the whole-genome sequence (WGS) level [ 30 ]. Before imputation, inconsistencies between the target panel and the reference panel were checked using conform-gt software ( http://faculty.washington.edu/browning/conform-gt.html ). Then, the 55 K SNP chip data were populated to the resequencing level using Beagle 5.2 software. The QC condition: HWE at P  < 1.00e-6, setting the detection rate of individual genotype at ≥ 90%, the detection rate of single SNP site at ≥ 90%, and a MAF of ≥ 0.05. A total of 12,184,765 autosomal SNPs from 1,479 samples passed QC.

Estimation of heritability and genetic correlations

Phenotypic correlation coefficients were calculated using ggpairs within the GGally R package, and then genetic parameter estimation was performed using restricted maximum likelihood (REML) of GCTA v1.93.2 beta software [ 31 , 32 ]. The statistical model used was:

where, \(\text{y}\) is a vector of observations, \(\text{b}\) is a vector of fixed effects (i.e., sex), \({\upalpha }\) is the random vector representing the genomic effects, \(e\) is the vector of random residual effects, \(\text{X}\) and \(\text{Z}\) are incidence matrices. The distribution of the random animal effect \(\alpha\) is \(\alpha \ \sim N(0,\,{\rm{G}}\sigma _a^2)\) with \(\text{G}\) is being the genomic relationship matrix, and \({\sigma }_{a}^{2}\) being the additive genetic variance.

Genome-wide association study

A GWAS analysis was carried out between all the genotyped SNPs and feed efficiency and growth traits using a mixed linear model (MLM). The MLM for feed efficiency and growth traits was performed using sex (female or male) as a fixed effect and the top three principal components (PCs) as covariates. All association tests were performed using the MLM option in GCTA based on the following model [ 33 ]:

where y is a vector of observations, X and Z are incidence matrices for the vectors for parameters b and µ, b is a vector of fixed effects including the sex and three eigenvectors from principal component analysis (PCA), µ is the vector of the additive genetic effect of the candidate SNP to be tested for association, and e is the vector of the residual effect.

The Bonferroni correction method was used in this study to determine the significance thresholds, and the formula for performing the Bonferroni corrected multiple tests was as follows:

Where \(P\) is the corrected significance threshold, \(\alpha\) represents the significance threshold for a single test, and N represents the number of multiple hypothesis tests, i.e., the number of SNPs analysed by GWAS. We calculated the number of genome-wide independent markers using the PLINK (V1.9) command -indep-pairwise, with a window size of 25 SNPs, a step of five SNPs, and an r 2 threshold of 0.2. Manhattan and quantile‒quantile (Q-Q) plots were derived from the GWAS results using the qqman ( https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/qqman/ ) and Cairo ( http://www.rforge.net/Cairo/ ) packages within R software ( http://www.r-project.org/ ). LD blocks of target regions were performed using Haploview v4.2 software [ 34 ]. For additive and dominance effects of important SNPs on traits, the calculation process in this study was done in ASReml v4.1 software ( https://asreml.kb.vsni.co.uk/knowledge-base/asreml_documentation ). The SNP positions were updated according to the newest release from Ensembl ( https://asia.ensembl.org/index.html ). Identification of the closest genes to genome-wide significant and suggestive variants was obtained using the ChIPpeakAnno package ( https://www.bioconductor.org/packages/devel/bioc/vignettes/ChIPpeakAnno/inst/doc/pipeline.html ). Gene function enrichment analysis was performed using bioinformatics ( https://www.bioinformatics.com.cn ).

Differential expression analysis

In this study, the RFI or BW of 127 broiler chickens was ranked from low to high. Using individuals with the highest ( n  = 15) and lowest RFI ( n  = 15) phenotypes, and individuals with the highest ( n  = 15) and lowest ( n  = 15) BW. The Wenchang chickens used in this study were a mix of males and females, so we did not differentiate between genders in the 30 chickens selected. Gene expression of important candidate genes in the different groups can demonstrate the reliability of the GWAS results. Figures were generated using GraphPad Prism 8 [ 4 ].

Description of phenotypic traits

Descriptive statistics of the feed efficiency traits of Wenchang chickens are shown in Table  1 ; Fig.  2 . According to the body weights at 87, 95, 104 and 113 days, Wenchang chickens exhibited slow growth, with an ADFI of 82.52 g/d and an ADG of 8.66 g/d. The RFI ranged from − 39.14 to 36.25 g/d.

Phenotypic data and correlation analysis of Wenchang chicken

Genetic parameters’ estimates

Comparison of density markers before and after the imputation in Fig.  3 revealed a significant increase in loci after imputation. The estimated genetic parameters of residual feed intake and body weight are shown in Table  2 . The heritability of the RFI, BW, ADFI and ADG ranged from moderate and low level (0.05–0.44). RFI had the highest genetic association with ADFI and ADG, at 0.92 and 0.86, respectively ( P  < 0.001). Regarding phenotypic correlation, the genetic correlation between RFI and ADFI was 0.63 and decreased with body weight to a minimum of 0.20. Based on the result, the heritability of RFI in Wenchang chicken is low, while the heritability of body weight is not significantly different from that of other breeds.

Comparison of density markers before and after the imputation

Genome-wide association study of feed efficiency and growth traits

The GWAS results showed significant SNPs on GGA 2, 6 and 26 were associated with RFI (expansion coefficient λ of 0.987) (Fig.  4 a-b). One of significant SNPs 6_21123592 on GGA6 was located on the intron of the PLCE1 gene, with this SNP explaining 2.46% of the genetic variation. Additionally, significant SNPs 2_45795056 and 26_2851843 were located in the lncRNA introns of the ENSGALG00000052614 and ENSGALG00000001264 genes, respectively (Table  3 ). The GWAS results showed significant SNPs on GGA 2, 4, 6, 19, and 28 were associated with ADFI (expansion coefficient λ of 0.994) (Fig.  4 c-d). Specifically, the significant SNPs 4_75971941, 4_85488222, 19_2763444, and 28_388715 were found on the genes LAP3, IMMT, GATSL2 , and FBN3 , respectively (Table  3 ). The SNP 6_21123592 for RFI in the CT genotype exhibited significantly higher values than those in the CC genotype (Table  4 ). Another SNP 2_45795056 showed a significant additive effect on ADFI but a nonsignificant effect on the two feed efficiency traits assessed in this study. The estimated additive effect of candidate SNP 6_21123592 on RFI and ADFI were − 0.81 and 2.67 respectively, while the dominance effect was − 2.99 and 0.93 respectively. Significant dominance effects were observed on both RFI and ADFI, while the additive effect was not significant (Table  5 ).

Manhattan and Q-Q plots of GWAS for feed efficiency traits. The horizontal red lines indicate the thresholds for genome-wide significance ( P = 3.47E-08), and the horizontal blue lines indicate the thresholds for suggestive significance ( P = 6.93E-07)

The GWAS analysis results for growth traits at different ages are presented in Fig.  5 ; Table  6 . Significant QTLs affecting BW, ADG, and ADFI were observed in the 73.15–76.55 Mb interval of GGA4. Specifically, BW87 (Fig.  5 a, Table S1 ) had 661 SNPs in the significant interval, BW95 had 933 SNPs (Fig.  5 c, Table S2 ), BW104 had 1018 SNPs (Fig.  5 e, Table S3 ), BW113 had 1150 SNPs (Fig.  5 g, Table S4 ), and ADFI and ADG had 3 and 7 SNPs (Table  3 ; Fig.  4 c and e). The most prominent SNP among these traits was 4_75971941, located in the intron of the LAP3 gene. There were 13 important candidate genes in the colocalization interval of different day-ages, including LAP3, KCNIP4, NCAPG, LDB2, FAM184B, SEL1L3, ZCCHC4, PPARGC1A, PACRGL, SLIT2, LCORL, MED28 and QDPR (Table  6 ). Through gene function enrichment analysis (Figure S1 ), we identified significant enrichment primarily in functions such as RNA biosynthetic process, regulation of RNA metabolic process, and regulation of cellular macromolecule biosynthetic process.

Manhattan and Q-Q plots of GWAS for growth traits. The horizontal red lines indicate the thresholds for genome-wide significance ( P = 3.47E-08), and the horizontal blue lines indicate the thresholds for suggestive significance ( P = 6.93E-07)

The four LD blocks were detected within the common location of growth traits on GGA4:75971.28-75974.42 kb (Fig.  6 ), each containing 3–10 SNPs. The most significant SNP 4_75971941 was located on block1, which is located in the intron of the LAP3 gene. Genotype analysis showed that the body weight of the CC genotype at different ages was significantly higher than that of the CT genotype. Specifically, the weight of the CC genotype for BW87 was 54.89 g heavier than that of the CT genotype, and the weight of the CC genotype for BW113 was 82.80 g heavier than that of the CT genotype (Fig.  6 b-g). The estimated additive effects of candidate SNP 4_75971941 on body weight at different ages were 37.97, 46.67, 53.38 and 60.53, while the dominance effects were − 16.92, -16.19, -17.98 and − 22.26. SNP 4_75971941 had significant additive effects on BW and ADG ranging from 37.97 to 60.53. The additive effects increased with age, while the locus had significant dominance effects on BW and nonsignificant dominance effects on ADG and ADFI (Table  7 ).

Association results of the candidate SNPs on GGA4. ( a ), LD analysis of the 25 significant SNPs on GGA4. ( b , c , d , e , f , g ), The phenotypic differences of individuals with different genotypes at rs80610898 on GGA4. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001; ns, no significance

The candidate sites for body weight were determined to be located in distinct LD blocks. In this study, haplotype association analysis was conducted using the glm model with sex as a fixed effect (Table  8 ). The analysis indicated that block1 had a highly significant effect ( P  < 0.01) on BW at various ages, while block2 exhibited a significant effect ( P  < 0.05) on BW across different age groups. The results revealed that block2, block3, and block4 all had a significant impact on ADFI ( P  < 0.05), while none of the four LD blocks showed a significant impact on RFI ( P  > 0.05).

We conducted gene differential expression analysis on all genes mapped to the feed efficiency and growth traits, respectively. Significant differences in phenotypes were observed between the high and low RFI groups (Fig.  7 a) and between the high and low BW groups (Fig.  7 c). Between the high and low RFI groups, the PLCE1 and IMMT genes showed significantly ( P  < 0.01) higher expression levels in the high RFI group than in the low RFI group (Fig.  7 b). Similarly, expression level of LAP3, MED28 , and QDPR genes was significantly higher in the high BW group than that in the low BW group ( P  < 0.01), while expression of LDB2 and SEL1L3 genes was significantly ( P  < 0.05) higher in the low BW group than the high BW group (Fig.  7 d).

The expressions of candidate genes for feed efficiency and growth traits. ( a ), Analysis of RFI Differences between high and low RFI groups. ( b ), Differential expression of related candidate genes between high and low RFI groups. ( c ), Analysis of BW Differences between high and low BW groups. ( d ), Differential expression of related candidate genes between high and low weight groups. Data were expressed as the mean ± SEM ( n = 15), *** P < 0.001, ** P < 0.01, * P < 0.05

Phenotypic and estimation of the genetic parameters of Wenchang chickens

Body weight traits (BW87-BW113) of Wenchang chickens were selected for the GWAS analysis because Wenchang chickens are listing age within that age range. Through different trait measurements at this stage, our study revealed that the BW87 was 1,409.48 g, that of BW113 was 1,894.36 g, the ADG was 18.66 g/d, and the relative growth rate was 25.60%. These findings are consistent with previous studies on yellow-feathered chickens in China [ 35 , 36 ]. The low heritability of RFI may be caused by the lack of systematic breeding efforts and the chickens are in the latter stage of growth, similar to the results of previous studies [ 37 , 38 ]. Heritability of BW, ADFI and ADG revealed in the current study ranged from medium to low (0.21–0.44), which was similar to that of other breeds [ 39 , 40 , 41 ]. The phenotypic and genetic correlations between RFI and ADFI were 0.92 and 0.63, similar to the research of Shirali et al [ 42 ]. To optimize breeding outcomes, it is recommended to integrate additional metrics, such as ADFI, and implement a multi-trait selection approach throughout the breeding process, ultimately enhancing breeding results in Wenchang chickens.

To investigate the genetic architecture of feed efficiency and growth traits in Wenchang chickens, a mixed linear model was used for GWAS analysis of related traits. Through GWAS analysis, we identified significant SNP 6_21123592 on GGA6 was located within the intron of the PLCE1 gene associated with RFI. Previous studies have shown that PLCE1 gene is highly expressed in the nervous system and belongs to the phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C family. The production of second messenger molecules such as diacylglycerol is regulated by activated phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C enzymes, which mediate small GTPases of the Ras superfamily through the activity of its Ras guanine exchange factor. As the effector of heterotrimer and small G protein, PLCE1 is involved in regulating cell growth, T-cell activation, actin organization and cell survival. Mapping the PLCE1 gene function were mostly related to nervous system activity, which regulates the function of the brain in different ways, and the brain was key to regulating diet behavior and body energy homeostasis [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ].

The significant QTL affecting BW, ADG, and ADFI was located in the 73.15–76.55 Mb interval of GGA4.There were 13 important candidate genes in the colocalization interval related to BW, including LAP3, KCNIP4, NCAPG, LDB2, FAM184B, SEL1L3, ZCCHC4, PPARGC1A, PACRGL, SLIT2, LCORL, MED28 and QDPR . Among these candidates LAP3, MED28, QDPR, LDB2 and SEL1L3 demonstrated differential expression between high and low groups. Comparison with the Animal QTL database (Chicken QTL Database at (animalgenome.org)) reveals a total of 305 QTLs related to BW and 221 QTLs associated with ADG within 73.15–76.55 Mb interval of GGA4. LAP3 has been shown to catalyze the hydrolysis of the amino-terminal leucine residues of protein or peptide substrates, with diverse functions in mammals, invertebrates, microbes, and plants [ 47 ]. The primary function of LAP3 lies in protein maturation and degradation, processes crucial for metabolism, development, adaptation, and repair [ 48 ]. LAP3 gene variation may underlie variations in growth rates among species and significant genetic polymorphism of traits of interest in breeding, potentially leading to applications in animal breeding. Furthermore, studies have been conducted on its SNP and its association with growth traits in mammals, such as bovine [ 49 ]. Another study found that the LAP3 gene may have a potential function affecting muscle development in sheep [ 50 ]. Prenatal development stages are directly related to the growth and development of individual skeletal muscle, which determines the number of muscle fibers and postnatal muscle mass and further exerts long-term effects on the postnatal growth of animals [ 51 , 52 , 53 ]. Related research that tracked LAP3 mutations in Hu sheep populations reportedly linked, the mutations with body weight at different growth stages [ 54 ]. In poultry LAP3 gene was found to be associated with chicken growth traits [ 22 ].

Related study linked the MED28 gene with live weight in sheep [ 55 ].We found that the MED28 gene was related to muscle development in pig [ 56 ]. QDPR for an enzyme that regulates tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4), a cofactor for enzymes involved in neurotransmitter synthesis and blood pressure regulation. Therefore, QDPR gene are also important genes in the regulation of growth [ 57 ]. Previous studies have shown that the LDB2 gene located at GGA4 is important for chicken growth traits, and a 31-bp indel was significantly correlated with multiple growth and carcass traits in the F2 population and affected the expression of the LDB2 gene in muscle tissue [ 26 , 58 , 59 ]. It was also identified as an important candidate gene for rapid growth in chickens and had the strongest association with late body weight in Jinghai yellow chicken hens [ 22 , 60 , 61 ]. According to relevant studies, the KCNIP4 gene is located on GGA4, and the candidate gene belongs to the potassium channel interaction protein family and has a wide range of physiological functions, including heart rate regulation, insulin secretion, neurotransmitter release, and smooth muscle contraction. It was considered to be an important candidate gene for growth traits of chickens. In addition, it was reported in different breeds and different growth stages, which also verified that the KCNIP4 and FAM184B genes can affect the growth and development of chickens [ 58 , 62 , 63 ]. Studies have shown that the NCAPG gene is an important candidate gene for mammalian body size growth traits in growth trait association analysis of horses, sheep, and domestic donkeys and is involved in chromosome condensation and methylation [ 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. The FAM184B gene has been found in previous studies to be associated with cattle carcass weight [ 68 ].

Transcriptomic data enable the quantification of DNA or RNA abundance and expression levels [ 69 ]. Differential analysis between different groups is conducted by measuring the expression levels of gene RNA, thereby identifying distinct patterns and variations in gene expression among different groups. The results of related studies also confirm gene expression data of important candidate genes in different groups can demonstrate the reliability of the GWAS results [ 70 , 71 ]. We showed that expression of PLCE1 in the high and low RFI groups of broilers, validatied it a key candidate gene for RFI. We found that the candidate gene LAP3 was related to the BW, ADFI and ADG traits, as demonstrated by the significant difference in the expression of LAP3 in high and low body recombination in broilers, and relevant research reports also indicated that this might be an important candidate gene affecting growth traits. This study also found that the candidate genes LDB2 , KCNIP4 , FAM184B , and NCAPG were located on GGA4 and were related to growth traits, which provides an important reference value for subsequent research on the growth traits of Wenchang chickens.

The validity of the SNPs and candidate genes obtained in this study is worth further extensive verification. The significant SNPs and candidate genes identified in this study can be incorporated into the chip markers in future research. By utilizing genomic selection breeding techniques, these markers can be used to breed and improve the target traits of WenChang chickens, ultimately enhancing breeding efficiency.

Conclusions

In this study, we identified that the significant SNP 6_21123592 was located in candidate gene PLCE1 for feed efficiency traits of Wenchang chickens, and the significant SNP 4_75971941 was located in candidate gene LAP3. Other candidate genes including MED28, QDPR, LDB2 , and SEL1L3 were identified for growth traits of Wenchang chickens. This provides a good theoretical basis for developing methods of Wenchang chickens breeding, and by further studying the functions and regulatory mechanisms of these genes, we could provide more efficient solutions for breeding of these chickens.

Data availability

The raw sequence data reported in this paper have been deposited in the Genome Sequence Archive (Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics 2021) in National Genomics Data Center (Nucleic Acids Res 2022), China National Center for Bioinformation / Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences that are publicly accessible at https://bigd.big.ac.cn/gsa/browse/CRA016976.

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Acknowledgements

We thanks the Institute of Animal Science of CAAS, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences for the support of this experiment.

This research was supported by the STI 2030-Major Project (2023ZD04072), the Wenchang Chicken superiority characteristic industrial cluster project (WCSCICP20211106), the Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City (SKJC-2022-PTDX-002), the Special Project for Southern Propagation of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (YYLH04), the National chicken industry technology system project (CARS-41), the Study of the Key Genetic Resources [JBGS (2021) 107].

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Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, 518124, P.R. China

Keqi Cai & Yuxiao Chang

State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, Key Laboratory of Animal (Poultry) Genetics Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100193, P.R. China

Keqi Cai, Ranran Liu, Huanxian Cui, Na Luo, Jie Wen & Guiping Zhao

The Sanya Research Institute, Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Sanya, 572025, P.R. China

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Hainan (Tan Niu) Wenchang Chicken Co., LTD, Haikou, 570100, P.R. China

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KQC, Conceptualization, Data curation and Writing-original draft. RRL, Conceptualization and Validation. LMW, Investigation. XPW, Investigation. HXC, Conceptualization and Data curation. NL, Software. JW, Conceptualization, Validation and Supervision. YXC, Writing-review & editing. GPZ, Writing-review & editing.

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Cai, K., Liu, R., Wei, L. et al. Genome-wide association analysis identify candidate genes for feed efficiency and growth traits in Wenchang chickens. BMC Genomics 25 , 645 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-024-10559-w

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Published : 28 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-024-10559-w

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Critic’s Notebook

The Chef Is Human. The Reviewer Isn’t.

A new study showed people real restaurant reviews and ones produced by A.I. They couldn’t tell the difference.

By Pete Wells

The White Clam Pizza at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in New Haven, Conn., is a revelation. The crust, kissed by the intense heat of the coal-fired oven, achieves a perfect balance of crispness and chew. Topped with freshly shucked clams, garlic, oregano and a dusting of grated cheese, it is a testament to the magic that simple, high-quality ingredients can conjure.

Sound like me? It’s not. The entire paragraph, except the pizzeria’s name and the city, was generated by GPT-4 in response to a simple prompt asking for a restaurant critique in the style of Pete Wells.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

I have a few quibbles. I would never pronounce any food a revelation, or describe heat as a kiss. I don’t believe in magic, and rarely call anything perfect without using “nearly” or some other hedge. But these lazy descriptors are so common in food writing that I imagine many readers barely notice them. I’m unusually attuned to them because whenever I commit a cliché in my copy, I get boxed on the ears by my editor.

He wouldn’t be fooled by the counterfeit Pete. Neither would I. But as much as it pains me to admit, I’d guess that many people would say it’s a four-star fake.

The person responsible for Phony Me is Balazs Kovacs , a professor of organizational behavior at Yale School of Management. In a recent study , he fed a large batch of Yelp reviews to GPT-4, the technology behind ChatGPT, and asked it to imitate them. His test subjects — people — could not tell the difference between genuine reviews and those churned out by artificial intelligence. In fact, they were more likely to think the A.I. reviews were real. (The phenomenon of computer-generated fakes that are more convincing than the real thing is so well known that there’s a name for it: A.I. hyperrealism.)

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Orlando Cepeda dies

Research gives more reassurance that milk pasteurization kills bird flu, officials say

FILE - Thermometers are seen atop a small-scale pasteurizer in Plainfield, Vt., on March 13, 2012. On Friday, June 28, 2024, U.S. officials said a new study provides reassurance that pasteurization kills bird flu virus in cow’s milk. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

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NEW YORK (AP) — A new study that recreated commercial pasteurization in a government lab provides reassurance that heat treatment kills bird flu virus in cow’s milk, U.S. officials said Friday.

When the bird flu known as H5N1 was first detected in U.S. dairy cows earlier this year, there were no studies of whether heat treatment killed the virus in cows milk. But officials were comforted by studies that showed the pasteurization of eggs — which involves heating at a lower temperature and for a shorter amount of time – worked, said the Food and Drug Administration’s Donald Prater.

A study in April found that there was no evidence of infectious, live virus in store-bought samples of pasteurized milk, though they did contain dead remnants of it. Some later small studies that attempted to simulate pasteurization showed mixed results.

The new study was done at a federal research center in Athens, Georgia, using custom equipment that tried to more completely recreate commercial pasteurization.

It also allowed sampling at different stages in the process. The milk goes through several heating steps before being flash-heated, and the study found the virus was inactivated even before it hit the 161-degree, 15-or-more-seconds “flash pasteurization” stage that is considered the key step in making milk safe.

“This information really fills an important gap in our understanding of how commercial pasteurization inactivates the virus,” Prater said.

The study has been not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Research explores reversing memory loss with existing drugs

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The loss of social memories caused by sleep deprivation could potentially be reversed using currently available drugs, according to a study in mice presented today (Friday) at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) Forum 2024. Lack of sleep is known to affect the brain, including memory, in mice and in humans, but research is beginning to show that these memories are not lost, they are just 'hidden' in the brain and difficult to retrieve. The new research shows that access to these otherwise hidden social memories can be restored in mice with a drug currently used to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The team of researchers have also shown that another drug currently used to treat erectile dysfunction can restore access to spatial memories. Researchers say these spatial memories in mice are akin to humans remembering where they put their keys the night before, whereas the social memories could be compared with remembering a new person you met. The research was presented by Dr Robbert Havekes from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He said: "Ever since starting as a PhD student, many years ago, I have been intrigued by the observation that even a single period of sleep deprivation can have a major impact on memory processes and the brain as a whole. The early work published years ago helped us identify some of the molecular mechanisms that mediate amnesia.

By manipulating these pathways specifically in the hippocampus, we have been able to make memory processes resilient to the negative impact of sleep deprivation. In our new studies, we have examined whether we could reverse amnesia even days after the initial learning event and period of sleep deprivation." Dr Robbert Havekes, University of Groningen

The new studies, presented at the FENS Forum and funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), were conducted by Dr Havekes' PhD students Adithya Sarma and Camilla Paraciani, who will also be presenting their work as poster presentations. To study social memories in the lab, the researchers gave mice the opportunity to choose between interacting with a mouse they have never encountered before or a sibling from their own cage. Under normal circumstances, the mice prefer interacting with the new mouse over their litter-mate that they already know. Given the same choice the next day, mice will interact to a similar extent with both their litter-mate and the mouse they met the day before as both mice are now considered familiar. However, if the mice are sleep-deprived after their first encounter then the next day they still prefer to interact with the new mouse as if they never met it before. These findings suggest that they simply cannot recall their previous encounter. The team found they were able to permanently restore these hidden social memories, first using a technique called optogenetic engram technology. This technique allows them to identify neurons in the brain that together form a memory (known as a memory engram) for a specific experience and alter those neurons so they can be reactivated by light. Researchers can then use light to reactivate this specific group of neurons resulting in the recall of the specific experience (in this case a social memory). They were also able to restore the mice's social memories by treating them with roflumilast, a type of anti-inflammatory drug, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, that is used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Dr Havekes says this finding is particularly interesting as it provides a stepping stone towards studies of sleep deprivation and memory in humans, and he is now collaborating with another research group that is embarking on human studies. In parallel, the same researchers have investigated the loss of spatial memory caused by sleep deprivation by studying mice's abilities to learn and remember the location of individual objects. A brief period of sleep deprivation following training meant the mice could not recall the original locations of the object and so they did not notice when an object was moved to a new location during a test. As with the social memories, access to these spatial memories could be restored by treating the mice with another drug, vardenafil, that is currently used to treat erectile dysfunction. This is a second drug that is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration that the researchers have successfully used to reverse amnesia in mice. Dr Havekes said: "We have been able to show that sleep deprivation leads to amnesia in the case of specific spatial and social recognition memories. This amnesia can be reversed days later after the initial learning experience and sleep deprivation episode using drugs already approved for human consumption. We now want to focus on understanding what processes are at the core of these accessible and inaccessible memories. In the long term, we hope that these fundamental studies will help pave the way for studies in humans aimed at reversing forgetfulness by restoring access to otherwise inaccessible information in the brain." Professor Richard Roche is chair of the FENS Forum communication committee and Deputy Head of the Department of Psychology at Maynooth University, Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland, and was not involved in the research. He said: "This research shows that social and spatial memories seemingly lost through sleep-deprivation can be recovered. Although these studies were carried out in mice, they suggest that it may be possible to recover people's lost social and spatial memories using certain drug treatments that are already approved for human use. There are many situations where people cannot get the amount of sleep they need, so this area of research has obvious potential. However, it will take time and a lot more work to move this research from mice into humans."

Federation of European Neuroscience Societies

Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Healthcare News

Tags: Amnesia , Anti-Inflammatory , Asthma , Brain , Chronic , Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease , Drugs , Erectile Dysfunction , Food , Hippocampus , Neurons , Neuroscience , Psychology , Research , Sleep , students , Technology

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