Value-added food processing

13 min read

More than at any time in the history of our civilization, people live a considerable distance away from where their food is produced in 1960, twice as many people lived in rural areas than lived in urban centers. By 2007, however, rural and urban populations were at equilibrium.

By 2020, a billion more people lived in urban centers than in rural areas. While the changing population dynamics have led to a more affluent populace, with better access to social services and economic opportunities, 1 it has also led to fewer people being employed in agriculture. In developed countries, the share of labor that is directly engaged in food production is as little as 1%; 2 most of the population is engaged in manufacturing and services provision.

Value-added food proocessing
A chart showing urbanization trends from 1960-2020.

At the same time, arable land has come under pressure from industrial and agrochemical soil pollution, declining levels of water to raise crops and desertification. In Asia, Europe, and Africa, where most of the urbanization has happened, 60% of the land used for urban space development was formerly agricultural areas. 3 Countries like China have also lost a significant part of their arable land to soil pollution, while areas that depend on irrigation have had to contend with dried-up rivers, exacerbating the problem.

Food processing has emerged as the best, and sometimes, the only, way through which urban populations can be fed adequately, and with the right quality of food. A widely accepted definition of value-added food processing is any process taken to transform or enhance agricultural products into food or food forms. 4 Beyond this definition, food, in the process of being transformed, appreciates in value, and attractiveness to consumers, and can be stored for longer. Here, we look at the advantages and disadvantages of food processing, including critical issues regarding human health, food wastage, and environmental impact.

Types of processed food

Minimally-processed foods

The main goal behind processing some foods minimally is to extend their shelf life, without changing their nutritional value. Some of these foods are naturally edible products of plants and animals, and the processing does not substantially change their composition. Some of the most common minimal processing techniques include pasteurization, which is a heat treatment administered on milk, and vacuum packaging, which removes air from a package before sealing and is favored for some fruits and meat. Fermentation and freezing are also considered to be minimal processing techniques.

Minimal processing helps preserve the most important elements of processed food, such as the freshness of fruits, and the taste of milk and meat. However, some of the techniques, while they succeed in preserving the food, do not necessarily make it safe for consumption. For instance, salmonella, which is especially abundant in meat grown in CAFOs, can easily survive extremely cold temperatures. 5 Therefore, minimal processing does not always make the food safe to eat, despite helping suppress the actions of several classes of microorganisms.

Processed culinary ingredients

Salt, sugar, vegetable oil, olive oil, corn syrup, starch, and honey, among others, are not used in their primary form as food. Instead, they are processed to incorporate into the processing of other foods. According to Statista, every year, more than 200 metric tons of vegetable oil are produced, with most of the oil coming from soybean, palm, rapeseed, and sunflower. Vegetable oil is an essential ingredient in most households’ cooking needs. It is also used extensively in food processing, including in the production of margarine, and baking. Corn syrup is used in sweetening baked foods, soft drinks, fruit juices, and related products.

While there may be naturally-occurring products or those that have undergone less processing, processed culinary ingredients have become a mainstay in food processing. For instance, preservatives, which are mostly salts such as sodium nitrite, are essential for meat processing. Vegetable oils are also used to preserve canned meats, in addition to oil.

There is an ongoing debate on the health impact of various ingredients. In other sections of this paper, the health benefits and potential dangers of processed ingredients will be discussed in more detail.

Processed foods

Processed foods are those that, to prepare, features the addition of sugar, oil, or salt, and in many cases, a combination of one or all of these ingredients. Canned foods, which include preservatives and vegetable oil, as well as bread, which features significant amounts of salt, sugar, and vegetable oil are examples of such foods. Most of these foods can easily be eastern without additional preparation. The primary objective for processing food in this category is to ensure they reach the consumer in good condition.

Ultra-processed foods

Ultra-processed foods have, in addition to processed culinary ingredients, significant amounts of artificial flavors, color, and preservatives. They may also contain stabilizers and hydrogenated fat, which also helps extend the food’s shelf life, and intended flavor. These foods undergo extensive transformation to improve their texture, palatability, and shelf life. Examples of such foods include soft drinks, processed meats such as sausages, and breakfast cereals. Ultra-processed foods are mostly derived from organic sources – such as corn, wheat, or barley. However, they undergo processes that result in completely new food types. Today, Americans derive around 60% of their calories from ultra-processed foods, an issue that has far-reaching consequences for public health.

Figure 3: Product label showing the ingredients used to make Coke, a popular soft drink around the world.

Figure 4: A product label detailing ingredients used to make cookies.

Why food processing is important

While several reasons motivate farmers and businesses to process food, this paper looks at the most important. The incentive to process food can originate from the consumer, farmer, intermediaries, or government bodies. Some of the major reasons include:

  • Profit incentives
  • Improvement of nutritional value
  • Improvement of taste and related qualities
  • Deriving food forms and benefits that would otherwise be unavailable without processing
  • Food preservation
  • Marketing and convenience

Profit incentive

Kellogg’s cereal corn flakes, a popular breakfast cereal, retails at around 11 dollars per kg in most places around the world. The product contains 90% corn, sugar (high fructose corn syrup), salt, barley malt extract, and several artificial nutrients including iron, zinc, and vitamins. While technical expertise that goes into making flakes, and other considerations make a significant part of the overall cost, the market price of the primary ingredient, corn, is currently 0.6 dollars per kg. It can be argued, with this information, that the average corn farmer, with the relevant infrastructure and knowledge, would rather sell cornflakes than corn. The profit that he would stand to make would be extremely high.

Improvement of nutritional value, palatability, and new products

Plant proteins, including those contained in legumes, are generally cited as being harder to digest than animal proteins. Their structure means that they have to be modified in some way to enhance their nutritional value. 6 Around the world, 15-20% of the population has some form of protein intolerance or an allergy to particular classes of proteins. 7 Such people can suffer from the deprivation of nutrients that are essential for body-building. Through food processing, however, these issues can be dealt with, while also improving the nourishing potential of a range of foods.

A whole range of food products would otherwise be unavailable, were it not for processing. For instance, breakfast cereal is one of the very few ways through which corn can viably be incorporated into human diets. Alongside corn, barley, and oats, corn is technically an inedible grain, whose benefits, including the presence of fiber, protein, and minerals would be lost to humans.

Raw unprocessed soybeans are potentially a source of all classes of proteins that the human body needs. But the legume could be potentially harmful to human health, due to the presence of chemicals such as lectin and genistein, 8 which cause abdominal discomfort, and are seen as helping the proliferation of breast cancer cells, respectively. With food processing, these elements can be suppressed, enabling humans to derive other benefits found in the bean.

With the exception of a few fruits and vegetables, most food sources cannot be exploited without some form of industrial processing. Processing, in addition to killing off toxins, such as the case with soybeans, or producing new products, is essential in making a whole range of foods actually edible, while improving their attractiveness, taste, and aesthetic qualities.

Food preservation

Half of the farm production in developing countries never makes it to the market, let alone the consumer. Globally, half of all the fruits and vegetables produced end up being thrown away. 9 One of the reasons why the wastage levels are so high is the lack of proper distribution and processing infrastructure in developing countries, and the lack of sufficient capital to improve or create such networks. Value-added food processing, which among other things, extends the shelf life of food products, is essential in limiting this wastage.

Food does not have to be processed extensively to minimize wastage. Minimal food processing techniques, such as freezing, have been found to have dramatic effects on food wastage, reducing the amount of fresh produce wastage by as much as six times. At the same time, processed food contains several types of preservatives, mainly in the form of salt. These preservatives limit the actions of microorganisms, which lead to food degradation.

Additionally, vast gaps exist between supply and demand. This is a consequence of several factors, such as food only being grown in some areas, and diminishing arable land. This means that food needs to be preserved to survive the distance and time between farm and fork.

Ultra-high temperature processing, a technique by which food, including milk, is processed, is capable of extending the shelf-life of the processed food by more than 90 days. Vacuum-sealing perishable foods such as meat extend the shelf life by more than 4 times. In case the food is then refrigerated, the food can be preserved for between 2 to 3 years since there is no oxygen available to facilitate spoilage bacteria’s activity.

Food wastage in this respect occurs between the farm and the consumer. It is lost even before leaving the fields in some instances, due to poor harvesting and storage systems. After leaving the fields, food is also lost in warehouses, during packaging, distribution, and finally, when on the shelf. The cumulative wastage runs into millions of tons. In the US, for instance, 60 million tons of food are lost in this process. 10

Marketing and convenience

Processed foods are prepared, packaged, and presented to the market in attractive ways that make them more marketable. A study conducted by the International Food Information Council (IFIC), 11 found that on average, more people in developed countries find processed food more attractive than unprocessed food. 12 This is especially so among the younger generation, who, on average, prefer to consume more ultra-processed food. The trend is changing – towards even more consumption of such foods. Today, Americans are consuming more calories than ever before, with the primary culprit being processed and ultra-processed foods. 13 One of the prime reasons for this is the effect of marketing campaigns that understand consumer preferences and tailor their products’ processing and packaging to appeal to these preferences.

         Processed food can be divided into more manageable parts, and packaged while considering the needs of particular consumers. This is not so easy to achieve with unprocessed foods. For instance, processed meat is packaged in small parts, which can be graduated depending on the consumer’s needs and preferences.  Convenience is not only a consequence of food processing. It is also a big part of the reason why fast foods, served in manageable portions, are so popular, especially with the younger generation, who may need simple, one-time meals. As we will see later, however, increasing portions have resulted in people eating more, and, in other instances, more food being thrown away by consumers who buy more than they need.  

The problem of food wastage

Food wastage is both the result of a lack of proper food processing and also, as a result. Every year, more than 4 billion metric tons of food are produced. 14 If all this food was to reach the intended consumers, it would be enough for everyone, and world hunger/ malnutrition would likely be eradicated. 15 However, due to the lack of proper processing and distribution mechanisms that would ensure a seamless delivery of food from the fields to the dinner table, more than 1.3 billion, or slightly more than 32% of the food goes to waste.

There are several reasons why this situation occurs. As we discussed before, food miles are increasing, necessitating the need for processing. This demands the availability of sufficient processing infrastructure to ensure the food is processed properly. Additionally, processed food has to consider many aspects that will make the food more attractive to consumers, retailers, and the supply chain that conveys the food from source to destination.

The demand for perfect produce has also fueled the enormous wastage seen in our society today. Perceptions credit perfectly shaped vegetables as the highest quality products. 16 This in turn informs manufacturers, who look for only the perfect produce from farmers. Farm produce is subjected to various grading criteria that are informed by prevailing market preferences, in the process meaning that as much as a third of all produce in the US is lost even before it leaves the farm, simply on account of being “not up-to-standard”.

Some solutions have been proposed to prevent the loss of perfectly good food that does not look as good. According to some commentators, food that is likely to be rejected because of not having all the aesthetic attributes that consumers want can be priced at lower prices, enabling consumers to trade-off good looking food for affordability and quantity. Proponents of genetically modified foods (GMOs) argue that GMOs are likely to result in more uniform, pleasing sizes that consumers would be happy to buy. Ultimately, these measures may be only cosmetic, with a need to fundamentally change the root of the issue – consumer preferences, and marketing practices.

Conclusion

Value-added food processing has revolutionized human society over time. From the earliest days of human civilization to the current sophisticated food-processing plants, humans have always tried to make the food at their disposal more nutritious and tasty, and last longer. Today, an array of techniques are used to process food, in the process creating products that are highly processed, with significant impacts on health. Another major attribute of food processing is that while it helps preserve food, and produce new food products, it also needs to appeal to consumer preferences. This results in food that may sometimes neglect the health benefits of food, in favor of commercial success.

References

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Capozzi, V., Fiocco, D., Amodio, M., Gallone, A., Spano, G. “Bacterial Stressors in Minimally Processed Food.” international journal of Molecular Sciences 10.7 (2009): 3076-3105. <https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/7/3076/htm>.

Goldenberg, S. Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests. 13 07 2016.

Güneralp, B., Reba, M., Hales, B., Wentz, E., Seto, K. “Trends in urban land expansion, density, and land transitions from 1970 to 2010: a global synthesis.” Environmental Research Letters 15.4 (2020). <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6669/meta> .

Harvard. Processed Foods and Health. 2021. <https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods/>.

IFIC. “Perceptions on Processed: Consumer Sentiment and Purchasing Habits.” 2021. <https://foodinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IFIC-Perceptions-on-Processed.July-2021-2.pdf>.

IMF. Urban Poverty. IMF, 2007. Digital. <https://www.elibrary.imf.org/configurable/content/journals$002f022$002f0044$002f003$002farticle-A006-en.xml?t:ac=journals%24002f022%24002f0044%24002f003%24002farticle-A006-en.xml>.

Kassel, K., Martin, M. Ag and Food Sectors and the Economy. US Federal Government. Washington, D. C.: USDA, 2021. <https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/ag-and-food-sectors-and-the-economy/#:~:text=Agriculture%20and%20its%20related%20industries,percent%20of%20total%20U.S.%20employment.>.

Kim, Dan-Bi, et al. ” “Sorbic, benzoic and propionic acids in fishery products: a survey of the South Korean market.” ” Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A 35.6 (2018): 1071-1077.

Kumar, A. Food Processing By-Products and their Utilization. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

Majendie, A. Without Clearing Any New Farmland, We Could Feed Two Earths’ Worth of People. 15 12 2020. <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-15/no-more-hunger-how-to-feed-everyone-on-earth-with-just-the-land-we-have#:~:text=At%20the%20moment%2C%20the%20world,and%20Agriculture%20Organization%20(FAO).>.

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  1. Economists aver that, if handled well, urbanization is a potent weapon against poverty, and helps people lead better lives. Generally, people need more money to live in towns than in rural areas. However, they also have more ways of securing gainful employment in urban areas, a factor that has, among others, helped countries in Africa and Asia to significantly reduce poverty.[]
  2. Farming contributed only 1.4% of all jobs in the US economy in 2020. However, related industries including food processing contributed more than 10% of all jobs, and were worth a combined USD 1.055 trillion in GDP.[]
  3. China, South-East Asia and Europe have in particular seen a significant loss in arable land as a direct consequence of urbanization. Urban density is decreasing, meaning that more people occupy even larger areas, much of which was originally farmland. The resulting urban sprawl pushes food sources further away.[]
  4. Another definition of value-added food processing considers the practice as a set of mechanical and/ or chemical processes that are aimed at enhancing or maintaining the properties of food. This may refer to nutritional value, besides other elements of food that consumers consider when making the purchasing decision. The USDA defines processed foods as those that have undergone ay changes to its natural state, including washing, cleaning, milling, chopping, heating, pasteurizing, blanching, or any other procedure that may alter the food from its natural state. Ingredients that may be added during any of these processes include preservatives, flavors, color, and nutrients.[]
  5. Salmonella cannot be killed by freezing. However, many other microorganism pathogens are easily dealt with through freezing. On the other hand, pasteurization is effective for killing a host of bacteria. However, additional processing techniques, including vacuum packaging and additives, have to be employed to ensure a reasonably long shelf life.[]
  6. Anti-nutritional factors are found in significant levels in plant proteins. Through processing, these factors can be deactivated, making plants more dependable sources of proteins.[]
  7. Among the most prevalent allergies, cow’s milk is particularly troublesome, since it affects infants, some of whom may be unable to digest baby formula.[]
  8. Soybean has several chemical compounds are either beneficial or toxic to humans and animals. Cooking in some ways suppresses the actions of many of the toxins, but with more processing, resulting in milk, tofu, oil, and other products, the beans potential is exploited more meaningfully.[]
  9. Consumers are responsible for most of the wastage that occurs, directly or indirectly. Indirect wastage happens when consumers demand “perfect” products from vendors, and ultimately from farmers. It happens directly when unprocessed food is deemed as spoilt, and thrown away after reaching the consumer. Freezing alone could save as much as six times the amount of food wasted.[]
  10. Quoting government statistics, the Guardian adds that 25% of fresh farm produce – vegetables and fruits, is just thrown away for not meeting the anticipated market preferences. Globally, 1.6 billion tons of food, with an estimated market value of 1 trillion dollars, is wasted annually, most of it before it even gets to the consumer.[]
  11. In the US, 77% of the population purchases processed food and beverages sometimes or often, with 32% doing so often – with processed food and beverages contributing a significant portion of their calorie intake. Younger people (below 45) are twice as likely to purchase such food.[]
  12. Food processors invest in sensory additives – which appeal to sight and taste. Such additives naturally make the food much more attractive than unprocessed or less-processed food.[]
  13. Today, Americans are consuming 500 more calories than they did in the 1970s. This has resulted in increasing rates of obesity and related conditions, meaning that the calories predominantly come from processed and ultra-processed fats, which are high in sugar, artificial flavors, and fat.[]
  14. Bloomberg quotes the United Nations Food Program (UNFP) as saying that with the current food production levels, we can be able to feed everyone, and still have 300 million tons to spare – we need 3.7 billion tons annually to feed 7.8 billion people. In terms of calories, the world currently produces 2700 calories per person per day. On average, a person needs 2100 calories, meaning that, even with the usual 20% household wastage, it would still be possible to fed everyone with available production.[]
  15. With appropriate improvement in food processing and food distribution, we would only need a marginal increase in food production to feed 9 billion people in 2050. No increase in whole grains, oils, and sugar are needed. Instead, we need to increase proteins by 3.27%, dairy products by 0.79%, and fruits by close to 9%.[]
  16. Consumer perceptions have forced food processors and growers to carefully consider the sort of food they bring to the market. As such, food needs to not only be healthy, but also look appealing to the eye. The process of grading and removing less appealing food leads to significant wastage. (excerpts from the Washington post, quoting Tristram Stuart’s book: Waste: uncovering the global food scandal.[]
Author
Mbau Tim