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The University of Nottingham (UoN) has developed two novel food-allowed additives based upon xanthan gum. The generation of these structurally modified forms allow xanthan to be used more efficiently in food manufacturing applications and provide nutritional and health benefits. The invention of the new xanthans benefits the global food industry by facilitating new product development and formulation.
Research at the University of Nottingham (UoN) has generated a deep understanding of how semi-crystalline biopolymers, particularly starches and cellulosics, can be controlled through processing to create products with predictable behaviour and with enhanced functionality, especially for texture creation. This knowledge has been transferred to the food industry and to other manufacturers who use natural materials. Concepts developed by UoN have become the bedrock of understanding for large and small manufacturers, enabling them to reduce waste, adapt recipes allowing for cleaner labels and additive reduction, expand the range and quality of materials they can utilise and attempt novel manufacturing procedures.
Research at the University of Reading into the origin of acrylamide, a neurotoxin and probable human carcinogen, in cooked cereal and potato products has provided crucial information for the food industry and government agencies. This has enabled important mitigation strategies to be developed. When acrylamide was unexpectedly discovered in food in 2002, there was no explanation for its origin. Pioneering research at Reading showed that it was formed during heating from naturally-occurring sugars and the amino acid asparagine. Because of this knowledge it was then possible to investigate factors affecting acrylamide formation and develop methods of mitigation. Subsequently investigations were undertaken worldwide, including work at Reading, to minimise the problem.
The University of Nottingham (UoN) has transferred an understanding of how starchy foods are modified by processing, attained through working with human foods, to the animal feed industry. The knowledge developed at UoN and further advanced by co-operative programmes with industrial partners, has enabled animal feed manufacturers to reformulate and modify their production procedures to optimise manufacturing operations, increase profitability and the nutritional quality of the feeds.
The tropical root crop, cassava, is a food security crop for 450 million people in Africa. This case study describes the impact pathway from strategic research on transformation to make safe, cheap and valued products for food and industrial use, to impact on the ground in Africa benefitting 90,000 smallholder farmers with strong prospects to increase to 250,000 within eight years. The impact pathway involved using:
a) strategic research on cyanogen reduction during cassava processing, overcoming problems with mycotoxin contamination, improved processing and sensory evaluation;
b) adaptive research to develop market-based solutions to use cassava as a commercial/industrial commodity;
c) large scale impact on the ground in Africa through Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding and take up of the products by the private sector.