Discover how food products are created, from concept through to deployment.

• Learn how sensory analysis, food trends, and D values affect the development of a new food product
• Understand the five stages of food product creation, and how they affect marketing efforts
• Explore policy, legalities, and the importance of health claims, warnings, and advisory statements
• Apply your knowledge as you design your own food product with our problem-based learning project

COURSE CONTENT

There are 9 lessons in this course:

1. Overview: Scope and Nature of Food Processing Industry
   
   • Introduction
   • Understanding Food Spoilage
   • How Food can be Preserved


2. The Role of Nutrition in New Product Development
   
   • Health, Food Development, and Processing
   • Essential Nutrients and Nutrition
   • Other Natural Additives
   • Nutrient Potential Assessment


3. Chemical Processing, Preservatives, and Additives
   
   • Defining Processed Foods
   • Additives for Appearance
   • Additives for Taste
   • Food Contact Materials


4. Thermal Food Processing, Pasteurisation and Microwave Cooking
   
   • Understanding Microbial Destruction
   • Types of Heating
   • Pasteurisation
   • Reheating Food
   • Heating For Serving


5. Managing Health Claims and Other Statements
   
   • Health Claims vs. Nutrition Content Claims
   • Health Claims and Development
   • Warning and Advisory Statements
   • Genetically Modified Foods


6. Developing New Food Products (including Marketing)
   
   • Developing the Marketing Concept
   • Consumer Buying Behaviour
   • Stages of Developing a New Food Product


7. Packaging, Labelling and Storage
   
   • Choosing Packaging Materials
   • Types of Packing Materials
   • Design Considerations in Packaging
   • Labelling
   • Storage


8. Legal, Policy and Management
   
   • How Legal Requirements Impact Food Processing
   • Food Production Management
   • Differences Between Manufacturing and Production
   • Entry of Products into Foreign Markets


9. Developing a New Product - Problem Based Learning (PBL) Project
   
   • Working through food product development stages to design your own product

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

WHY PROCESS FOOD?

There are lots of different reasons for processing food. Sometimes foods are processed primarily for marketing purposes, sometimes the main reason may be to make them taste better; and sometimes it is so they can be handled easier, and kept for longer. More often than not, there are multiple reasons for processing foods; and if those reasons are all to be satisfied, it is imperative that we understand the technology that underpins food processing and how to apply that technology to satisfy those purposes.

This is what you will learn about in this course.

One of the purposes of food processing and preservation is ensuring that the nutrient value of a given food is maintained, or that necessary nutrients are presented in a digestible form. Another purpose of processing is nutrient access – creating foods that make nutrients more digestible or accessible to the body, through processing or inclusion of useful additives (like vitamin C, which increases iron absorption). Finally, healthy food processing means keeping additional sugars, sodium, and preservatives low while maintaining taste and freshness. This can be a difficult line to walk, especially with children’s foods.

HEALTH, FOOD DEVELOPMENT, AND PROCESSING
For development, health, and marketing purposes, foods are often broken into two types:

•  Whole 
  
•  Processed

Whole foods are foods which keep their natural composition and are either not processed, or minimally processed. Apples are a whole food. Rolled oats are a minimally processed whole foods.

Processed foods are foods which undergo several processing steps, and usually contain additives such as artificial flavourings and added sugars. Many fruit juices are processed food products. Potato chips are a processed food. 

Many food products on the market are processed foods, and companies continue to develop processed food products due to high demand. Processed foods are often high in flavour and convenient to eat or prepare. This makes them especially popular across several market segments. 

As scientists learn more about human health, however, demand for hybrid food products – foods which use whole food ingredients but can be prepared quickly and easily with high flavour – is increasing. This means that people working in the food industry must be aware of the basics of nutrient density, essential nutrients, sodium content, and fat and sugar content in food products. They must also understand how to integrate this understanding into the development process for both concept and marketing.