Food Processing Energy Efficiency

The agri-food industry is a huge energy consumer and GHG producer (15% of UK total). Current food production & processing methods are highly energy intensive, but often fail to impact significantly on ‘farm to fork’ crop yield losses, which average 30% of all crop yields due mainly to microbial spoilage.

This project will explore the feasibility of an innovative food-safe, non-tainting EW sanitising & cleaning solution produced by electrolysing a dilute solution of food-approved salts. This could be used at all stages of the food production process to reduce microbial load and cross-contamination.

The potential for such as solution is to radically reduce the energy usage of existing food manufacturing processes and to reduce farm to fork losses, having a direct impact on the effective yield and therefore energy demand of the agri-food industry. This would reduce usage & emissions, safeguarding supply and affordability.