EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Food

Centre vision: The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Food Manufacturing will meet the challenges of UK and global food security through developing world-leading technologies, tools and leaders, tailored to the specific needs of food products.
With a turnover of £76.2bn (20% of the UK total), Food and drink is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK employing around 400,000 people. With an anticipated rapid growth in 'better value' products and in products designed for the nation's Health and Wellness, in particular for the ageing population, food manufacturing requires innovation in increased productivity - to produce more from less - to preserve natural resources such as water and energy, to minimise waste generation and to decrease the trade deficit in the sector. Crucially this will enable the UK food sector to be at the forefront of the next generation of sustainable production which are more natural and healthier., and to develop more resilient supply chains leading to state of the art manufacturing capability, in an increasingly competitive landscape.
The proposed research focuses on identifying not only new sources of raw material but also on reducing the demand on existing resources through a simultaneous improvement of food products, manufacturing methods and supply networks. In this context, some of the key research questions are: How do we fully valorise biomass (including waste re-use) as new sources of raw material in food production?; How can we design and manufacture products with the high nutritional values using fewer raw materials?; How do we improve the efficiency of food production processes (e.g. through smart monitoring technologies; process intensification / flexible manufacturing) to consume fewer resources (materials, energy and water) across the supply chain?; How can we eliminate the production and post-production waste caused by inefficient supply and manufacturing activities and /or relationships?
The scope of the proposed research focuses on the manufacturing activities from 'post-farm gate to supermarket shelf', and will be considered under two specific Grand Challenges (GC): 1) Innovative materials, products and processes and 2) Sustainable food supply and manufacture. These research challenges closely align with the EPSRC call for 'Centres for Innovative Manufacturing', in particular the three areas of Resource Efficiency in Manufacturing: processes and technologies towards complete reuse of key materials and components; the need to dramatically reduce energy demand, including the incorporation of smart energy monitoring and management technologies; optimisation of material and product re-use, re-manufacturing and recycling, Innovative Production Processes: manufactured foods being complex formulated systems, and Complex Multifunctional Products: food is a high volume product assembled using processes which operate from the nano- (raw material) to the macro-scales (packaged goods).
The proposed EPSRC Centre brings together world leading expertise in the areas of biomaterial science, formulation engineering and sustainable manufacturing. Loughborough and Nottingham are involved in the current EPSRC Centres and will ensure complementarities with other EPSRC research portfolios. The Centre will deliver demonstrable tools, methods and specific technologies, will develop academic and industrial leaders, and will provide evidence to support future policy making, thus ensuring the long-term competitiveness and security of the UK and global food supply chain. The proposal benefits from the interest and support of a wide range of stakeholders from ingredient producers and manufacturers to retailers and governmental organisations and has exploitation opportunities as the research challenges fit with the strategic themes in the new TSB High Value Manufacturing Strategy 2012-2015.

The Centre will cover the scientific and technological requirements of the food industry along the whole value chain from 'post-farm gate to supermarket shelf', requiring multi-disciplinary technical input from process engineering, chemical engineering, material science, food science, microbiology and toxicology, life cycle analysis, ICT and advanced manufacturing, thus impact will span the manufacturing paradigm from the technology / process level through to production and supply chain level. The scope of impact provides a challenge and a great opportunity to engender vision in the UK science base and to improve uptake and recognition in the industry.
The connection to industry through support, involvement in the advisory board and links to SME networks, through an interaction with the Manufacturing Technology Centre and clear alignment with the TSB High Value Manufacturing Strategy 2012-2015 will provide exploitation routes for the developments within the Centre. This should provide funding routes for sustainability beyond the first 5 years EPSRC funding.
Activity at the interface of disciplines will enable ground breaking publications in leading journals, which focus on specific areas of the food industry (e.g. Food Engineering, Food Hydrocolloids, J of Food Manufacturing Efficiency), and will provide cross-sector dissemination opportunities in (e.g Soft Matter, Langmuir, The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Journal of Manufacturing Processes) along with invitations for keynote addresses.
Interaction and involvement with the National Technology Platform, KTN, FDF, ETP Food for Life and KIC Foodbest will provide influence, through delivery, into policy setting for future funding opportunities in the UK and across Europe.
The UK will benefit from the outputs of the Centre through an increase in productivity and efficiencies, a decrease in resource need (energy, water and raw materials) and the provision healthier, wholesome foods to achieve positive healthcare outcomes for the population, thus having impact on Food Security and Sustainability.
As the Centre begins to progress the areas of research equipment suppliers will be invited to become involved. We will host equipment for proof-of-principle, allowing equipment suppliers to design new versions of equipment to suit the developing targets, instead of manufacturing being constrained by what is already present. While developments in automation infrastructure will not be the focus of the Centre, developments in Eco-food production research theme can be shared with the Food Manufacturing Engineering Group. Innovation in production of healthy foods can drive inputs into the Rowett Institute and Institute of Food Research studies on human nutrition, while development of technologies for SME organisations can be translated through collaboration with Leatherhead Food Research and Campden BRI. Progress in the producing new, natural materials could utilise collaboration with the scale-up opportunities at the BDC at York and the BEACON Biorefining CoE for Wales. Technologies developed within the activities of the Centre may become suitable for spin-out to parallel industries (pharmaceutical, cosmetics, paints and chemical) as we would look to spin-in technologies to enhance the capability of the food industry.

In creating such an innovative environment we hope to redress the flow of high quality researchers being lured to overseas competitors, and we aim to nurture the next generation thought leaders for the UK food industry by providing high quality science training. This will include experiment design and execution, writing and presenting skills, knowledge of ideation and new technology scouting, team working and researcher committee leadership opportunities. Business training will be given in accountability against targets set in personal development plans.