Virtualization and digital twins of the food supply chain for enhanced food safety.

Meeting food safety requirements without jeopardizing quality attributes or sustainability involves adopting a holistic perspective of food products, their manufacturing processes and their storage and distribution practices. The virtualization of the food supply chain offers opportunities to evaluate, simulate, and predict challenges and mishaps potentially contributing to present and future food safety risks. Food systems virtualization poses several requirements: (1) a comprehensive framework composed of instrumental, digital, and computational methods to evaluate internal and external factors that impact food safety; (2) nondestructive and real-time sensing methods, such as spectroscopic-based techniques, to facilitate mapping and tracking food safety and quality indicators; (3) a dynamic platform supported by the Internet of Things (IoT) interconnectivity to integrate information, perform online data analysis and exchange information on product history, outbreaks, exposure to risky situations, etc.

Characterization of ulluco starch and its potential for use in edible films prepared at low drying temperature.

The aim of this work was to characterize the starch obtained from ulluco (US) and evaluate its use in edible films prepared using different US concentrations (2.0, 2.5, and 3.

Effects of temperature, starch concentration, and plasticizer concentration on the physical properties of ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus Caldas)-based edible films.

Ulluco starch could be a promising renewable source for the production of biodegradable or edible films, as an alternative to plastic. This would mitigate the negative impact of plastics on the environment. The aim of this work was to study the effect of the starch concentration (SC), glycerol concentration (GC), and drying temperature (T) of ulluco starch-based films on their physical properties using stepwise regression (SR) and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches.

Characterization of chitosan edible films obtained with various polymer concentrations and drying temperatures.

Chitosan is a promising material that could be used for the development of edible coatings and films on an industrial level because of its film-forming, biodegradable, non-toxic, and antimicrobial characteristics. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of the polymer concentration (0.5%, 1.