Food engineering

Food engineering is a sub-discipline of food science, dedicated to the engineering processes related to food production, particularly industrialized foods. Genetic engineering of plants and animals is not normally the work of a food engineer.

It is a very wide field of activities, encompassing many different disciplines. Among its domain of knowledge and action are:

• Development of new food products
• Design of machinery and processes to produce foods, such as homogenization, food additives, flavoring, coloring, browning, pasteurization, fermentation
• Biotechnological processes of food production
• Choice and design of food packaging materials
• Design of shelf life factors, such as preservation
• Quality control of food production
• Food safety measures in the production of foods
• Design of processes for microbiological and chemical testing of foods.

Food engineering is directly or indirectly related to many other aspects of production of food, such as:

• Nutrition
• Agricultural science
• Fishery
• Animal husbandry
• Plant breeding
• Agricultural machinery

There are specific courses at graduate and postgraduate level for the training of food engineers in many countries.

Due to need of controlling food quality and safety, food engineering is a heavily regulated activity (e.g. Food and Drug Administration).