Accepted abstracts will be also invited to submit for a special issue of Food hydrocolloids

Do you want to learn more about the structure of food and how this knowledge can lead to new green and sustainable processes and could be used to create the foods for the future? Welcome to our annual Northern Lights on Food conference in Lund in May 2024!

When: 27–29 May, 2024 (lunch-to-lunch)

Where: Stadshallen, Lund, Sweden

Fees: 2900 SEK for researchers and industry, 1500 SEK for PhD students and postdocs, including conference dinner and visit to Kulturen’s Museum

Registration deadline: Please register latest 10/5-2024 (late registrations will be charged a fee of 3800SEK)

Abstract deadline and instructions: Please submit your abstract latest 25/4-2024, and note that you need an Indico account to submit your abstract. If you have trouble creating an account or submitting your abstract, please contact josefin.martell@linxs.lu.se.

Northern Lights on Food – Boosting structural food science

Food is a complex hierarchy of various components assembled into interconnected structures, spanning multiple length-scales. This conference will showcase how to answer research questions with advanced physical techniques, and demonstrate the power of complementary techniques to achieve in depth mechanistic understanding. Harvesting, processing, distribution, storage, digestion, and uptake – all steps from raw materials to nutrition – lead to the disruption, disassembly, and reassembly of structures with all these changes in the food matrix being highly dynamic. Food structure is responsible of functional properties such as texture, release of aroma, and taste as well as availability and release of nutritional components. The study of food structure demands the use of multiple structural techniques adequate for different time and length scales as well as models and simulations- based interpretation of data. Complementarity of X-ray and neutron-based techniques and developments in modeling bring new opportunities to redefine the discipline of structural food science.

The conference “Northern Lights on Food – Boosting structural food science” brings together leading scientists in the field and focuses on the study of food structure, the interrelationship between structure and function, and how a combination of techniques is necessary to fully understand the changes occurring in structure and function of food in complex matrices.

Preliminary schedule – might be subject to some changes. More speakers will be announced after the abstract deadline.
Monday 27 May
12:00 – 13:00 Registration and light lunch
13:00 – 13:15 Welcome by Prof. Annika Olsson, Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, Sweden
Chair: Niklas Lorén, RISE Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden
13:15 – 13:55 Structure Evolution of Meat Analogues During Processing Studied with Neutrons, Wim Bouwman, TU Delft, The Netherlands
14:00 – 14:20 Hierarchical structures of plant-based meat analogs unraveled by neutron and X-ray tool, Tong Guan, ETH Zurich & ILL, Switzerland
14:25 – 14:45 Thermal gelation of plant-based proteins, Francesca Dessi, Lund University, Sweden
14:45 – 15:15 Coffee break
Chair: Francisco Javier Vilaplana Domingo, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
15:20 – 16:00 Gastrointestinal digestion of food systems from a mechanistic and structural perspective, Marta Martinez- Sans, CIAL-CSIC-UAM, Spain
16:05 – 16:25 Structure and in vitro digestion of ethylcellulose oleogels, Lingping Zhang, Lund University, Sweden
16:30 – 16:50 Multiscale investigation of pea protein hydrogels digestion dynamics using X-ray techniques, Davide Schirone, Malmö University, Sweden
16:50 – 17:05 Break
Chair: Tommy Nylander, Lund University, Sweden
17:05 – 18:00 Popular science talk: What do consumers want from plant-based foods?, Armando Perez Cueto, Umeå University, Sweden
18:05 – 18:15 Non-destructive 3D imaging of food with the Exciscope Polaris, Jenny Romell, Exciscope
18:20 – 18:30 Remade@ari – a hub for materials research, Veronica Lattanzi, Danish Technological Institute
18:30 – 20:30 Mingle with drinks and snacks, poster session
Tuesday 28 May
Chair: Maud Langton, The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
09:00 – 09:40 Understanding the Nano and Microstructures of Casein and Casein-Based Products Using Small-Angle Scattering (SAS) Techniques, Jitendra Mata, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Australia
09:45 – 10:05 Dephosphorylation of bovine milk casein micelles Thea Lykkegaard Møller, Aarhus University, Denmark
10:10 – 10:30 Production and Application of Liquid Crystalline Nano-Structures from Enzymatically Modified Vegetable Oils, Eimantas Gladkauskas, Lund University, Sweden
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
Chair: Jens Risbo, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
11:05 – 11:45 X-rays and Neutrons for the Food and Food Ingredients Industry, Florian Nettesheim, IFF, Denmark
11:50 – 12:10 Influence of arabinoxylan extractions on the multi-scale structure and molecular organisation of wheat bran, Marjorie Ladd Parada, KTH, Sweden
12:15 – 12:35 Effect of modified potato starch on 3D structure development and retrogradation in gluten-free bread, Camilla Öhgren, RISE Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden
12:35 – 13:50 Lunch and mingle, poster session
Chair: Milena Corredig, Aarhus University, Denmark
13:50 – 14:20 Why X-ray and packaging?, Eskil Andreasson / Christel Andersson, Tetra Pak
14:25 – 14:45 A time-resolved multiple-length scale investigation of the structure of liquid foam stabilized by albumins from pea, Ruifen Li, Aarhus University, Denmark
14:50 – 15:10 Moringa protein-based Pickering emulsions: Formulation of Nutritious Food Spread, Namrah Azmi, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
15:15 – 15:35 Visualizing Core-Shell Structure in Food Tablets with Different Synchrotron Radiation Measurements, Tetsu Kamiya, Nagase & Co.,Ltd. and Tohoku University, Japan
15:40 – 16:00 Salt distribution in bread mapped by X-ray spectroscopy at different length scales, Torben Nilsson Pingel, RISE Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden
17:00 Guided tour at Kulturen’s Museum
19:30 – Conference dinner at AF-Borgen
Wednesday 29 May
Chair: Eskil Andreasson, Tetra Pak, Sweden
09:00 – 09:40 SAXS Imaging for the characterization of soft matter, Marianne Liebi, EPF Lausanne & Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
09:45 – 10:05 Factors influencing structure and stability of pea protein stabilized vegetable oil-in-water emulsions: Insights from SANS, Eleonora Olsmats, Uppsala University, Sweden
10:10 – 10:30 Self-assembly at drying interfaces, Emma Sparr, Lund University, Sweden
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
Chair: Anna Stradner, Lund University, Sweden
11:05 – 11:45 Neutron reflectivity studies of the adsorption of proteins and lipids at interfaces, Giovanna Fragneto, European Spallation Source, Sweden
11:50 – 12:00 Concluding remarks
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch and mingle
Please note that the Swedish Neutron Week will start in the same venue 14:00. You can register for the Swedish Neutron Week here
Local Organisation committee:
Tommy Nylander, email: tommy.nylander@fkem1.lu.se
Milena Corredig
Jenny Schelin
Frida Lewerentz
Peter Spégel
Scientific committee:
Niklas Lorén (RISE Research Institutes of Sweden)
Francisco Vilaplana (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
Maud Langton (SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)
Anna Ström (Chalmers University of Technology)
Jens Risbo (University of Copenhagen)
Peter Fischer (ETH, Zürich)
Armando Perez-Cueto, Umeå University, Sweden
Florian Nettesheim, International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), Denmark
Giovanna Fragneto, European Spallation Source, Sweden
Jitendra Mata, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Australia
Marianne Liebi, EPF Lausanne & Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
Marta Martinez- Sans, Institute of Food Science Research, CIAL-CSIC-UAM, Spain
Wim Bouwman, TU Delft, The Netherlands
The influence mechanism of bioactive to ensure the sustainability of food production, Kwame Attafuah Ampofo, Sunshine Machinery Co., Ltd
Exploring digestion pathways of proteins from Pisum sativum during gastric digestion, Anna Maischberger, Institute for Applied Physics, University of Tübingen
Encapsulation of probiotics, Shuai Bai, Lund University
Pea Seeds with Reduced Antinutritional Proteins: A Techno-functional and Nutritional Study, Rispah Ng'ang'a, Quadram Institute Bioscience
Small-Angle Scattering of bran arabinoxylan gels, Marjorie Ladd Parada, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Encapsulation of Myoglobin in Lipid Sponge Phase nanoparticles - A microfluidic approach, Marshall Machingauta, Lund University
Towards plant-based functional food ingredients: enzymatic production of GABA, Gabriela Ibieta, Lund University
Adsorption and Consumption of Hydrolysed Pectins by Gut Bacteria, Giovanni Tizzanini, Chalmers University of Technology
Meat analogues: Structural properties and their perception, Jaqueline Auer, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Learn about the chemical form at the Balder beamline, Kajsa Sigfridsson Clauss, MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University
Combination of 3D-CT and Mechanical Measurement for Texture Evaluation of Solid Foods, Tetsu Kamiya, Nagase & Co.,Ltd. and Tohoku University, Japan
Pre-selection of pea accessions of optimum gelation properties with SAXS for future plant-based alternatives, Qinhui Xing, University of Copenhagen
Effect of swelling of protein and starch on the heat-induced gelation of pea flour, Bo Yuan, University of Copenhagen
A porous aerogel from laccase-oxidized arabinoxylans of water-extractable whole rye grain (Secale cereale L.) serves as a vehicle for sustained release of anthocyanins from rose petals, Aratrika Ray, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Visualizing phase separation in meat analogues with included fat, Astrid Ahlinder, RISE