Prof Marc Hendrickx speaks at the Riddet Institute

On Friday 6 July 2018 the Riddet Institute was honoured to welcome Prof Marc Hendrickx and invite him to give a seminar on Process structure function relations in plant-based foods.

Prof Hendrickx is a senior professor of Food Technology at KU Leuven and is currently head of the Laboratory of Food Technology, member of the steering committee of LFoRCe (Leuven Food and Nutrition Research Centre) and co-director of the international Inter-University Program in Food Technology (IUPFOOD). The research of professor Hendrickx focuses on the understanding and quantification of process structure function relations of food systems during processing and preservations with focus on mechanisms and kinetics. Prof. M. Hendrickx has been involved in 15 multi-partner large scale EU funded projects (in the fields of thermal processing, high pressure processing and pulsed electric field processing), of which 6 as a coordinator. Recently, he has been a key scientist and member of the management board of NovelQ, High-Tech-Europe and HST FoodTrain.

The research activities of the KU Leuven Laboratory of Food Technology are focusing on understanding and quantifying process-structure-function relations of food systems during processing, preservation and storage by optimal exploitation of the Endogenous potential of fruit-, vegetable- and legume-derived systems, both for problems identified in North and South. The KU Leuven LFT research activities revolve around three key interrelated research lines:

(i) process structure relations or structure engineering answering the question on how food structures can be generated and maintained;

(ii) process structure quality relations or omics and kinetics for food quality design investigating the influence of the processes used and the structures obtained on biochemical, chemical and physical food quality aspects during processing and shelf life and

(iii) process structure health relations or in silico and in vitro digestion and bio-accessibility studies with focus on how food structure can be steered to influence/optimize nutrient bio-accessibility and digestion of plant-based foods.

This presentation discussed the KU Leuven research approach integrating reaction mechanisms, chemometrics (fingerprinting) and kinetics (including multi response kinetics) at different length scales (molecular, microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic) and time. Examples were included with specific focus on fruit, vegetable and legume-based foods and ingredients.

The seminar was well attended, and positive feedback was received by staff and students alike. Thank you, Prof Hendrickx, and we look forward to hosting you again.

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