The Northern Lights on Food conference highlights the need for a food network for scientists
The recent Northern Lights on Food II conference brought together researchers from academia and industry with the aim to establish a food network that will enable researchers to take full advantage of the new tools provided by large scale research infrastructures such as the ESS and MAX IV in Lund, Sweden. It was organised by the Food Science and Technology working group at LINXS.
A close to 140 participants, as well as keynote speakers and panelists, gathered for the online event, which took place over three days. It was opened by introductory remarks from the Lund University vice-chancellor, Prof. Erik Renström. In this interview, some of the keynote speakers and participants, share their reflections on the conference - which is a follow up activity on the successful Northern Lights on Food workshop in 2019.
Benjamin Boyd is professor at Monash University, Australia, and soon to commence a Novo Nordisk Laureate Research Fellowship at the University of Copenhagen. He is also core member of the new Northern Lights on Food theme at LINXS. Mario Martinez-Martinez is tenure-track assistant professor at Aarhus University (Denmark) with a focus on carbohydrates. Photo.
– The great science, collegial nature of the participants, and the many future potential intersections really highlighted the timeliness and need for a food network for researchers. This was not so much a surprise but a great validation of the concept we are trying to establish, says keynote speaker, Benjamin Boyd, professor at Monash University, Australia, and soon to commence a Novo Nordisk Laureate Research Fellowship at the University of Copenhagen. He is also core member of the new Northern Lights on Food theme at LINXS.
– Especially bringing together such a great array of scientists across the food and scattering communities was brilliant: the speakers and also the attendance list was really a who’s who from the Oresund region and beyond, so I was very impressed.
Mario Martinez-Martinez, tenure-track assistant professor at Aarhus University (Denmark) with a focus on carbohydrates, participated in the conference:
– The scientific rigor of the talks was at the highest level, covering the entire spectrum of structuring food macromolecules. I really enjoyed the talks. One interesting observation is that many of the researchers work on systems that might be too pure to resemble reality. This can represent a limitation that we need to be aware of going forward.
Research frontiers in food
When asked what Benjamin Boyd sees as research frontiers in food science, he responds.
– I think it is fair to say, that in the past, a large part of the food science spectrum has been too empirical. As approaches to study the structure in food systems are developed and matured, these new levels of understanding of how structure dictates performance, will enable true engineering of foods that are not only optimal from a composition perspective, but where structure is a much more important design feature.
– I also believe that understanding the interplay between structure and interactions with gut biology will be crucial for understanding the positive and negative impact of food, and x-ray and neutron scattering techniques are at the appropriate length scales to make a huge impact in this regard.
Mario Martinez-Martinez adds that, as a society and food scientists, we are now in an exciting time for science, since finding the crossover between nutrition and sustainability will dictate the most important aspects of food production and consumption.
– As an example, having livestock as the primary source of protein globally, considering the growing population, could be argued to potentially result in serious consequences for global protein security in the near future. But it is difficult to engineer those palatable and indulgent structures with the complex and diverse biopolymeric plant tissues.
He continues:
– Likewise, fighting chronic diseases, such as type-2 diabetes, obesity and cancer, through strategies emphasising individual willpower and personal responsibility is not enough unfortunately. Developing structured carbohydrate foods with the right dietary fiber and associated metabolites will become paramount, whose engineering principles would have to be built on clear structure-function relationships.
Mario Martinez-Martinez believes that the successful re-integration of fruit and vegetable waste is a good example of a strategy to move forward, yet, the structuring and colloidal properties of such by-products needs to be understood at different length and processing scales.
– Because maintaining health is not only about reaching for that apple in the basket. We need indulgent foods that are more nutritious, healthy and sustainable.
Next steps
Going forward, Benjamin Boyd would like to see the development of a joint roadmap produced by both industry and academics.
– It would be great if we could get industry and academics together to develop a roadmap of what problems are unsolved, what areas are underdeveloped, and where the intersections are to develop new techniques/experimental formats to answer those questions. For me, this is clearly the next step, and the working groups within the coming theme Northern Lights on Food are in a good position to focus on these objectives.
It will also be key to start meeting in person, and not only online, he emphasises.
– Getting people together in person and not virtually is crucial. It is also very important to provide industry with a very clear picture of how scattering science can help them to solve problems - in a language understood by industrial scientists.
Mario Martinez-Martinez agrees that all the sectors that have an interest in food should be brought together with a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
– On the one hand, we have the small companies that are agile enough to materialise new ideas. Then we have the large companies, that have money and a scientific workforce, but whose size-derived inertia could halt new ideas to see the light.
– Above all, big and small companies, together with academics and policy makers, should jointly prioritise human and environmental health moving forward, he concludes.
The working group Food Science and Technology was formed under the Imaging theme but has now progressed and formed a new theme at LINXS, Northern Lights on Food. The theme will start in August 2021 and run for three years. One long-term goal is, thanks to the collaboration established through LINXS activities, to establish an interdisciplinary European Food Laboratory next to Max IV, ESS and the future location of LINXS at Brunnshög. These aspects were discussed in a panel debate at the conference, moderated by Pia Kinhult.
– To meet the need to transform the food systems we have to establish inclusive, efficient, sustainable, nutritious and healthy food systems capable of achieving the SDGs. The Northern Light on Food initiative is making one vital effort to make this happen by increasing the awareness in the research community of new and advanced techniques and also building bridges between academia and industry. Innovation in technologies, policies and new institutions will be critical. I am looking forward to the European Food Laboratory taking on this role in the future.
Pia Kinhult
Head of Host States Relations, ESS