Food Engineering

Food engineering includes the study of engineering properties, for example, compositional properties like boiling or freezing point; physical characteristics such as size, shape, volume, surface area, density, and porosity; mechanical properties such as compressive strength, impact, and shear; sensory properties such as texture and color; and thermophysical properties such as specific volume, specific heat, thermal conductivity, and viscosity. Today’s food engineering research leaders tend to be experts in materials science (e.g., rheology, mass transfer properties, and thermal and electrical food properties), applied mathematics and modeling, and biochemical engineering applied to foods. Food engineers of the future will advance the development of computational techniques as tools for process automation, control, design, and improvement. Novel technologies like the application of high hydrostatic pressure, pulsed electric fields, light pulses, oscillating magnetic fields, and ultrasound have the potential to impact nonthermal processing preservation.