Shelf Life Predictions & Stability Measurements for Foods

Deadline: 2019-10-06
Award: $20,000
Open to: Everyone*

Most food manufacture is dedicated to producing foods that are not immediately consumed, but are stored and transported to be available as needed. When food is used, it is expected to be in as good a quality state as it was when it was first manufactured. To take the risk of storing and transporting foods, the food industry needs to have confidence in the knowledge of how long food will last. Thus, understanding and predicting food stability is essential to the food industry and its customers.

The Solver is expected to identify principles for analytical (bio)chemical methods that measure very small changes that occur in food products in a relatively short period of time. This will allow an estimation of reaction rates. Changes could be due to reactions such as lipid oxidation, Maillard reactions, enzyme-catalyzed lipolysis and enzyme-catalyzed proteolysis. Methods should not affect reaction kinetics