Pickering emulsions for food applications

Enormous food waste worldwide has huge environmental and cost efficiency impact. Chemical deterioration caused by e.g.oxidation of lipids, vitamins and other food constituents are causes of waste. Many foods are emulsions stabilized bysurfactants. Conventional surfactants have dominated emulsion science due to their ease of use, relatively low cost andcontrol.

However, their future industrial use is under threat, because of formulation foaming problems and the need to reducevolatile organic compounds and carbon footprints.

The use of so-called Pickering particles for production of physically andoxidatively stable emulsions may be a solution to these problems.

The aim of the Pickering Emulsions for Food Applications- PICKFOOD project is therefore to provide a framework and novel methodologies to study and develop Pickering emulsionsand to evaluate their applications in safe, healthy and functional foods in collaboration with the food industry.

Achieving thisgoal involves a combination of soft matter physics and food colloid science deepening our physical understanding ofemulsion stability and processing, preparation of food-grade Pickering particles as well as characterizing them by highlyadvanced methods not traditionally used in food science.

Moreover, physics and food science will join forces inelectrohydrodynamic processing to avoid the deterioration of thermo-sensitive compounds during encapsulation since thesolvents are evaporated at low temperature.

PICKFOOD assembles a multisectorial team of scientists to train youngresearchers, and provide them with the combination of skills from soft matter physics and food colloid science.

We want tospecifically provide them with technological and methodological competences to advance the field of Pickering emulsions forfood production and associated characterization methods ―and help them to utilize the experience from PICKFOOD in theirindividual careers.