F&V Processing 2020 - Third Symposium on Fruit and Vegetable Processing

This project concerns a request for support for a scientific event dedicated exclusively to Processed Fruit and Vegetables (https://symposium.inrae.fr/fruit-vegetable-processing2020/). The processing of fruit and vegetables has particular characteristics in many aspects, which are only partially and heterogeneously covered in Food Science and Technology or Horticulture conferences.

A diet rich and diversified in fruits and vegetables contributes to the nutritional balance of populations and to the sustainability of food systems. National and international organisations recommend a high proportion of fruit and vegetables in the average diet. Food processing enables the stabilisation of these products (prevention of quality losses of physiological or biochemical origin, elimination or control of pathogenic or spoilage micro-organisms) and offers consumers varied and easy-to-use products, available throughout the year. Processing is accompanied by changes in nutritional or sensory quality. In addition, climate change is leading to changes in agronomic systems (including genetic resources) and environmental conditions for production (heat and drought or, on the contrary, more intense but limited rainfall). These factors, as well as the development of more sustainable production systems, lead to increased uncertainties about the characteristics of raw materials. The challenge for the scientific community studying the processing and stabilisation chains is therefore to respond globally to these expectations of health and pleasure brought by the consumption of fruit and vegetables by taking into account the constraints linked to climate change and the demand for natural products, while having a positive social and environmental impact.

Themes related to the nutritional, organoleptic, sensory or microbiological quality of processed foods will be developed in a context of sustainability of the processing stages. One of the sessions of the congress is dedicated to the sustainability of food systems. The notions of circular economy, the place of processes at the level of territories or the reduction of waste will also be addressed, as well as the questions of trends and consumer acceptability. Thus, the various topics addressed in this congress are part of a sustainability approach to processing and stabilisation chains.