Abstract

1 | INTRODUCTION

2 | THE EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT AND ITS EFFECTS

3 | DATA AND MODEL

4 | RESULTS

5 | DISCUSSION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

REFERENCES

Abstract

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) transferred more than $67 billion to taxpayers in 2016. We estimate changes in spending that occur following EITC disbursement. We make three key advances in identifying the effect: using estimated EITC dollar benefits to differentiate the impact of low from high benefits; estimating the impact by liquid assets; and, employing a triple-difference model around the 1993 expansion and a separate triple-difference model over the number of children. We find that the EITC acts as supplementary SNAP benefits for those with small EITC benefits, while those with larger benefits increase spending on durables, particularly automobiles.

1 | INTRODUCTION

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the largest anti‐poverty programs for working age adults with children, transferring more than $67 billion per year (IRS, 2017). In 2018, the EITC along with the Child Tax Credit lifted 5.6 million individuals out of poverty, including over 3 million children, and reduced the severity of poverty for another 16.5 million people, including 6.1 million children (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2019). The EITC transfers result in several beneficial impacts for recipients based on both the direct impact of the transfers but also through increasing earnings and employment. The greatest impacts tend to be for households with earnings up to the threshold phaseout part of the schedule ($18,340 dollars of earnings per year for a two dependent child household), which are more likely to be female‐headed single parent households, as well as for households without a member previously in the labor force (Dickert et al., 1995; Eissa & Hoynes, 2006). There is some evidence that likelihood of EITC receipt increases in economic downturns—enabling it to act as a social safety net (Bitler et al., 2017). Other benefits of the EITC include positive impacts on children’s test scores (Chetty et al., 2011; Dahl & Lochner, 2008).

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Materials and methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

Ethical statement

Funding

Authors’ contributions

Declaration of competing interest

Acknowledgements

Appendix A. Supplementary data

References

Abstract

Traditional food marketing stimulates adolescents’ consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. These dietary behaviours may track into adulthood and lead to weight gain, obesity and related non-communicable diseases. While social media use in adolescents has proliferated, little is known about the content of food marketing within these platforms, and how this impacts adolescents’ dietary behaviours. This paper aimed to obtain expert insights on factors involved in the association between social media food marketing (SMFM) and adolescent dietary behaviours, and to explore their views on key priorities, challenges and strategies for future SMFM research and policies. One-on-one semi-structured interviews (n = 17) were conducted with experts from Western Europe, Australia and North America, in the fields of public health (policy), nutrition science, social media marketing, adolescent medicine, clinical psychology, behavioural sciences, communication, food industry, social influencing, and social marketing. The experts’ collective responses identified that the line between food content posted by social media users and food companies is blurred. Adolescents’ processing of SMFM may be mostly implicit, involving social comparison, emotional engagement, and attaching symbolic meanings to foods. Mediating factors and adolescent-specific and SMFM-specific moderating factors potentially influencing adolescents’ response to SMFM were summarized in a Social Ecological model.

1. Introduction

Despite several calls for action in the past three decades, adolescents have largely been overlooked in global health and social policy, which has urged academics from a range of disciplines worldwide to develop strategies to advance adolescent health (Patton et al., 2014, 2016). The WHO indicated that globally more than one in six adolescents, i.e. individuals aged 10–19 years, was overweight in 2016 (World Health Organisation, 2018). The prevalence of overweight and obesity in younger children seems to have stabilised over time, while the prevalence of overweight and obesity in adolescents aged between 11 and 19 years has increased with 10–11% between 1988-1994 and 2013–2014 (Ogden et al., 2016; van Jaarsveld & Gulliford, 2015). Compared to younger children, adolescents are less likely to consume a diet that aligns with dietary recommendations despite nutrient needs being the highest during this life stage (Tucunduva Philippi et al., 2016; World Health Organisation, 2005). Adolescents’ dietary patterns are generally characterized by frequent snacking, fast-food consumption, and meal skipping (Vaitkeviciute et al., 2015). Unhealthy dietary behaviours established in adolescence can track into adulthood and increase risk of obesity and related non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease (Kaikkonen et al., 2013; Patton et al., 2011; Singh et al., 2008; Vaitkeviciute et al., 2015). One major factor influencing dietary behaviours is food marketing (Smith et al., 2019).

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. Fundamentals of nanotechnology

3. The role of nanotechnology in achieving food security

4. Nanotubes in food and agriculture

5. Nanosensors in food and agriculture

6. The challenges of nanotechnology in food and agriculture system

7. Conclusions

References

Abstract

     Ensuring food security in developing countries is highly challenging due to low productivity of the agriculture sector, degradation of natural resources, high post farming losses, less or no value addition, and high population growth. Researchers are striving to adopt newer technologies to enhance supply to narrow the food demand gap. Nanotechnology is one of the promising technologies that could improve agricultural productivity via nano fertilizers, use of efficient herbicides and pesticides, soil feature regulation, wastewater management, and pathogen detection. It is equally beneficial for industrial food processing with enhanced food production with excellent market value, elevated nutritional and sensing property, improved safety, and better antimicrobial protection. Nanotechnology can also reduce post-farming losses by increasing the shelf life with the aid of nanoparticles. However, further investigation is required to solve the safety and health risks associated with the technology.

Introduction

     The foremost universal challenge on our planet is the question of establishing food security for a rapidly increasing population in the world. Predictions show that food demand is likely to rise from 59 to 98% for the world population reaching 9 billion by 2050 (Duro et al., 2020). Despite an increase of the world population particularly in developing countries, the global food supply interrupted by the expenditure of bio-resources for production of energy, manufacturing chemicals, high post farming loss, less value addition, inefficient distribution and marketing systems, and other factors (Barrett, 2021; Sekhon, 2014). Farmers throughout the world will focus on using new innovations and technologies for enhancing the production of crops through intensive and extensive agriculture. The current efforts further boosted through the use of nano-modified stimulants and precision farming. Agricultural efficiency, soil improvement, secure water use, distribution of food in stores, and its quality are basic factors of securing food that may be improved via advances in nanotechnology research (Ashraf et al., 2021; Sastry et al., 2011).

     Newer technology that will increase the production and reduce food wastage is important to maintain sustainable living standards of the nation and improve food security. Nanotechnology can provide a path for producing foods with outstanding quality in highly improved workable form along with induction of nutrients bioavailability. Many research investigations are focusing on increasing the application of nanotechnology for the production of crop and food processing (Abobatta, 2018; Axelos and Van De Voorde, 2017; Dasgupta et al., 2015; Peters et al., 2016). Increment in articles, intellectual property, and patents in nano-agriculture-based food with fresh research tendencies in the processing of food, nutraceutical distribution, packing, quality control, and serviceable food is a highly expanding field in nanotechnology research (Dasgupta et al., 2015).

Conclusions

     Nanotechnology is a newly emerging, but highly expanding technology in many fields related to human activities and benefits worldwide. Its fascinating phenomena have been witnessed through several research findings that the nanoparticles and nanostructure improve various properties due to small size, larger surface area, and highly catalytic nature. Nanotechnology is crucial in achieving food security, especially in the agriculture sector. It can improve crop production by effective microbial, pest, and weed control with high economic value, security, and safety. It also plays a key role in food processing, food modification, stability, sensing, prolonged shelf life, minimized food losses, and provide safe food. Nanotechnology also minimizes post-harvest losses with better stability, safety, and packaging materials. Nanoparticles like Ag, Au, Zn, TiO2, ZnO, SiO2, and MgO commonly used in food processing, may also induce health risks due to easy penetration through the cell for adverse reactions within various humans, and animal organs as well as parts of plants. Such risks due to nanoparticles or nanocomposite could be controlled in future research via using greener synthesis and searching for easy and cheaper protocols for degradation and removal of existing nanomaterial from the sites of attack.

Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

List of abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Food digestion

3. Absorption of nanoparticles

4. Intracellular fate of endocytosed particulates

5. Absorption of food colloids

6. In-vivo transportation and biodistribution

7. Dynamic formation and disassembly process of food colloids

8. Safety issue

9. Conclusions and future trends

Funding

Declaration of competing interest

References

Background: Food can be considered as a natural pool of biopolymer-based colloidal particles diverse in size, morphology, and functionalities. There remains considerable controversy on whether these particles can be absorbed from the intestinal lumen in their intact form even though numerous studies have confirmed the possibility of the absorption of intact nanoparticles across the intestinal wall. Scope and approach: In this review, we comprehensively summarize the absorption process of nanoparticles, including mucus-penetrating, cellular uptake, and intracellular transportation. We then perform a detailed study on the absorption of food colloidal particles composed of protein, lipid and carbohydrate. The in-vivo transportation and biodistribution of nanoparticles is then summarized. We also specially discuss the dynamic colloidal aspects of food components which is of great importance to the food digestion and absorption. Finally, we analyze the safety issue of food nanoparticles since an increasing concern on this arises in the past decades. Key findings and conclusions: External nanoparticles can be absorbed into cells through endocytosis, which can occur via different mechanisms. Like various fabricated nanoparticles, food colloidal particles potentially can also be absorbed in their intact form. However, previous studies rarely touch upon the absorption, biological fate, potential health effects, and safety of these colloidal particles. Their dynamic formation and disassembly process is also ignored. All these issues are of great importance to the food digestion and absorption mechanism and worth to be thoroughly studied. We attempt to coin all these relevant studies as “Colloidal Nutrition Science”, which aim to understand the food-body interaction from colloidal aspects.

1. Introduction

Many chemicals naturally found in food matrix are present in a colloidal state such as globulins a few nanometers in diameter, starch granules (~100 nm), or fatty acids several nanometers in length. Traditional processing (e.g., emulsification, heating, or cooling) can generate a variety of multiscale colloidal structures such as micelles, emulsions, foams, gels, or dispersions (Bellmann et al., 2015). There are also endogenous colloidal nanoparticles physiologically produced from ions in the mammalian gastrointestinal tract (GIT) (Powell, Faria, Thomas-McKay, & Pele, 2010). All these colloidal structures generally act as the skeleton in foods. They not only maintain the stability, processing and texture characteristics of foods before consumption but also carry the sensory, digestion, and absorption attributes of foods after ingestion (Lu, Nishinari, Matsukawa, & Fang, 2020). Hence, to understand the interaction of food with the body from a perspective of food colloids is a key to completely uncover food digestion and absorption mechanisms, and thus provide essential basis for the development of functional food products that are applicable to common and/or specific populations (Dickinson, 2015).

1- Introduction

2- The risk early warning method

3- Case study

4- Discussion

5- Conclusion

References

Abstract

Food safety risks has received great attention in all world. And the reasonable effectiveness of security warnings can reduce public panic and risk losses. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved risk early warning method for food safety detection data based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) integrating the quality control analysis method. The AHP based on the entropy weight can obtain risk values for food safety component data. And the risk matrix of the risk component is obtained by the risk probabilities of the components. Then the corresponding risk levels are calculated using the quality control analysis method to release the risk warning information. Finally, a case study of dairy product safety data from the GuiZhou province in China is conducted to verify the feasibility and reliability of the proposed method. Moreover, the proposed method can scientifically and reasonably determine the risk level information. Furthermore, the risk management is provided to effectively reduce risk losses of the country though relevant quality inspection departments.

Introduction

With the rapid development of the economy, the food safety and quality have raised a higher requirement. If making correct and timely warning of food safety, people’s fears will be alleviated, and the harm caused by the food security crisis will be reduced. Nowadays, there are more panic and unintended consequences bring by false warnings. And the food safety risk is serious. Meanwhile, more and more food safety problems involving complex food safety data are occurred (Ma, Hou, Liu, & Xue, 2016). Because the food safety risk monitoring foundation of China is weak, it is very important to customize a risk monitoring model based on the basic national conditions (Tang, 2013). Due to the superior processing characteristics of complex food safety data technology, many dig data analysis and artificial intelligence methods of food safety risk assessment and early warning were proposed (Liu, Li, Yang, & Guo, 2018a; Wang, Yang, Luo, He, & Tan, 2015). Samuel et al. (Samuel, Asogbon, Sangaiah, Fang, & Li, 2017) used the fuzzy analysis hierarchical process (AHP) technique to calculate the global weight of attributes based on their individual contributions and predicted the high frequency risk of patients by training the artificial neural network (ANN) classifier. Wang et al. (Wang & Yue, 2017) formulated an early warning strategy for the safety risks arising from food transportation in the real-time monitoring of food safety to reduce the risk of food supply chain.

1- Introduction

2- Methods

3- Results

4- Discussion

5- Conclusions and implications

References

Abstract

Food recovery is a key strategy to address food waste concerns. School nutrition programs have significant amounts of food waste; yet, little is known about the prevalence and feasibility of school food recovery. In this mixed methods study, we identify potential school food recovery options and relevant systems factors, such as policies, resources, barriers, and competing priorities. To achieve these objectives, we conducted pre-consumer food waste audits and measured all wasted food recovered or landfilled at 14 school kitchens across three Northern Colorado school districts. Additionally, we interviewed professionals engaged in food recovery (n = 8) and school nutrition and sustainability staff (n = 20). The results indicate that the majority of food waste is landfilled, but food donation through share tables and appropriation of milk to food banks prior to long school breaks were viewed as the most feasible food recovery options. Liability concerns, increased expenses over landfilling, inconsistent wasted food volumes, and policy confusion hindered food recovery. Interviewees also viewed priorities to promote food safety and quality of recovered food as barriers. Key facilitators of food recovery were the desire to facilitate a cultural change to normalize food recovery among students and volunteers or advocates to address the food recovery labor needs. Interview participants across the system agreed that the training process required to sort uneaten foods had secondary benefits of equipping the next generation with environmental stewardship habits. Study findings underscore the interconnected nature of food safety, economics, and food recovery, and also suggest that systems-level solutions are warranted.

Introduction

Food waste is a significant problem affecting the environment and the global population. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans produced 39 million tons of food waste in 2015, sending the majority of it to landfills (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016a). Landfilled food is a key driver of climate change due to the greenhouse gas emissions during the production, distribution and refrigeration of wasted food (Springmann et al., 2018), as well as the methane and carbon dioxide emitted by landfilled food (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016b). These gases change climate patterns which affect food production, water access, and exposure to health hazards (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2018) and warrants diverting food waste from landfills. In Colorado, seven million tons of solid waste are generated annually (Burns et al., 2016). In Colorado, 16.8 percent of residential and commercial waste is comprised of food, the second most common material landfilled following paper (Burns et al., 2016). The Larimer County landfill in Northern Colorado is predicted to reach capacity in 10 years if current and projected trends for disposal of solid waste continues (Sloan Vazquez McAfee Municipal Solid Waste Advisors, 2016). In order to better manage natural resources, the EPA developed the Food Recovery Hierarchy (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016c). Food recovery refers to strategies to prevent and divert wasted food from landfill disposal (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016c). Following the reduction of surplus food, the hierarchy recommends, in order of importance, feeding hungry people, feeding animals, industrial uses, and composting as landfill alternatives (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016c). Important considerations for food donations are proper food handling and food safety (McFadden et al., 2015). There are also increasing food safety concerns with feeding food scraps to animals, and this practice has dwindled considerably since the 1980s when a number of animal-feed related disease outbreaks occurred (Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, 2016a).

Product packaging plays a significant role in the interactions between manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. Marketers manipulate the exterior of the packaging to influence consumer expectations, experiences, and behaviors. Yet there has been limited, if any, research on the effects of inner packaging color (IPC) on postpurchase, pre-consumption behaviors. Study 1 explored interaction effects between IPC (white vs. red vs. blue) and health consciousness (HC) on the desirability of food. Study 2 explored interaction effects between IPC (red vs. blue) and health consciousness (HC) on the desirability of food. Study 3 explored whether perceived pleasure mediates the interaction effect of IPC and HC on the desirability of food. The results showed that merely changing the IPC of a food item can increase its desirability among high-HC individuals. In contrast, IPC increases the perceived pleasure of a food item for both low-HC and high-HC individuals, and perceived pleasure mediates the interaction effect of IPC and HC on the desirability of food. This study will assist marketers to explore a range of possibilities for inner packing color on both the physiological and cognitive aspects of consumer behavior relating to food products. For example, marketers could consider the relational effects of inner packaging with a range of different colors, as well as exploring internal and external color packaging combinations and their impact on post purchase pre-consumption behaviors.

Introduction

Packaging color entices and influences consumer perceptions, and it significantly affects the identification of products/brands (Labrecque and Milne, 2012). Due to its importance, companies may consider and carefully select the colors they use in the promotion of their products. Choosing an inappropriate color can result in misrepresentation of merchandise and potentially deter consumers from the product (Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015). Through packaging color, brands can create an effective visual identity (Kauppinen-Räisänen and Luomala, 2010), form strong bonds with a target audience, and position themselves advantageously amongst competitors (Kim et al., 2018). If this is the case, then it could be possible to alter the perceived pleasure and desirability of food by manipulating the color of the product packaging (inner and exterior) (Piqueras-Fiszman et al., 2012). Yet, there has been limited research on the effects of inner packaging color (IPC) on consumer behavior (e.g., avoidance, consciousness, pleasure, desirability) when related to food products. Packaging has a physical dimension, which is composed of either outer or inner packaging layers, as well as a functionality dimension, which is composed of either purchase or consumption packaging layers (for packaging design taxonomy, see Krishna et al., 2017). This research refers to the inside of the outer packaging of a product (e.g., consumption packaging), which mostly affects consumers at the time of consumption.

Abstract

Lipogenic and lipolytic pathways are tightly regulated by nuclear receptors and binding proteins, such as farnesoid x receptor (FXR) and sterol regulatory element binding protein 1c (SREBP-1c). We designed this research to study the effects of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and high-fat diet (HFD) on hepatic and adipose FXR and SREBP-1c gene expression beside the plasma levels of lipid profile and insulin. 24 male Wistar rats were randomly divided into normal (~12% fat) and HFD (~56% fat) groups with or without participating in the 8 weeks HIIT protocol. Results from two-way ANOVA and Pearson tests (P<0.05) showed that the HFD rats experienced a larger weight gain correlated with dyslipidemia and hyperinsulinemia, higher hepatic and adipose SREBP-1c expression and lower hepatic FXR expression compared with normal diet fed rats. Although HIIT rats showed higher hepatic FXR and lower hepatic and adipose SREBP-1c expression and lower weight gain compared with untrained rats, plasma lipid profile levels had not any significant difference between trained and untrained rats. Interestingly, hepatic FXR expression was negatively correlated with weight gain and SREBP1c expression in both tissues while only the hepatic SREBP-1c was positively correlated to insulin levels. In conclusion, HFD-induced dyslipidemia could occur via the activation of the hepatic SREBP-1c pathway under the insulin effect. Although HIIT rats showed lower SREBP-1c correlated to hepatic FXR activation it seems diet is more effective on lipid profile than HIIT. Also, in presence of HFD, HIIT only affects adipose lipolysis.

Introduction

Postprandial high fat diet (HFD)-induced dyslipidemia has been shown to be an independent risk factor for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases (Tan et al., 2014). Lifestyle interventions are mostly used for lipid lowering effects. It has been shown in human studies, that even one session of aerobic (Kolifa et al., 2004) or resistant (Petitt et al., 2003) exercise can reduce postprandial triglyceride (TG) content in a sex-independent manner that apparently is related to increased lipoprotein lipase activity and decreased endogenous hepatic very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) secretion (Tan et al., 2014). Increased hepatic lipolytic pathways after exercise appear to decrease liver free fatty acid stores, resulting in decreased endogenous hepatic synthesis and secretion of TG-rich VLDLs (Magkos, 2009).

There is growing evidence that a significant share of global food is thrown away, with concomitant detrimental repercussions for sustainability. Reducing food waste is a key sustainability challenge for the food service industry. Despite the significance of this issue to the global foodservice industry, the link between innovation practices and food waste management has received limited attention in the academic literature. This paper uses innovation management and social constructionism to investigate interrelationships of food service provisions and innovations in waste management. It is based on the evaluation of food waste solutions and innovations that combine strategic dimensions of waste management with practice-driven initiatives, including incremental (processes and technologies) and radical innovations. The paper presents a range of waste management initiatives, showing that their implementation in the foodservice sector varies depending on management’s beliefs, knowledge, goals and actions. The concepts discussed here could help practitioners to become more aware of the factors that drive the adoption of food waste innovations.

Introduction

Food waste is an ecological, economic and social problem. Every year some 1.3 billion tons of food are lost or wasted globally (FAO, 2013), representing a considerable share of the overall food produced (Lundqvist et al., 2008; Parfitt et al., 2010). Food wastage appears to be highest in developed countries (Buzby and Hyman, 2012), while on the other hand, there are an estimated 842 million people in poor countries experiencing chronic hunger (FAO, 2013). This raises the question as to whether food wastage could be reduced along food supply chains (Curtis and Slocum, 2016; Martinez-Sanchez et al., 2016; Muriana, 2017; Wilewska-Bien et al., 2016). In this paper, this is discussed for tourism, as a global food service industry, which is implicated in food consumption and waste generation (Betz et al., 2015). Focus is thus on the significant share of global food that is provided through food services in restaurants, fast food chains, cafés, cafeterias, canteens and dining halls, as well as event catering (Gössling et al., 2011; Hall and Gössling, 2013). The foodservice industry now employs more people than any single other retail business, including 14 million in the USA and 8 million in Europe (Euromonitor International, 2016) and serves billions of meals every year (Gössling et al., 2011). Therefore, the industry has a critical role in the global food waste challenge. Food providers in gastronomy, catering and hospitality have recently come under increasing scrutiny over their food management practices, and specifically food waste, with evidence that considerable amounts of food are thrown away during preparation, or because they cannot be stored and reused (Betz et al., 2015; Hall and Gössling, 2013; Silvennoinen et al., 2015). Waste management has thus become a key priority, referring to all the activities related to avoiding, reducing or recycling waste, throughout the production and consumption chain (Papargyropoulou et al., 2016). While there is a plethora of literature examining the antecedents affecting food waste management decisions (Arvanitoyannis, 2010; Bloom, 2010; Demen Meier et al., 2015; Hall and Gössling, 2013; Siorak et al., 2015), there have been limited investigations into the various practices and stages of waste innovation adoption by food service providers. This paper aims to examine two established theoretical paradigms jointly, facilitating an understanding of not only the several food waste innovations but also managers’ propensity to adopt innovation. It is becoming increasingly evident that a waste management program, and especially a waste treatment innovation, that ignores social aspects of management and professional skills, is prone to failure (Heikkilä et al., 2016). This can be a barrier to the effective implementation of food waste innovations.

The past decade has proven the competence of nanotechnology in almost all known fields. The evolution of nanotechnology today in the area of the food industry has been largely and has had a lot of contribution in the food processing, food package, and food preservation. The increasing global human population has come with growing population to be fed, and food production is not adjusted to at par with the growing population. This mismatch has shown the real essence of food preservation so that food products can reach to people on a global scale. The introduction of nanotechnology in the food industry has made it easy to transport foods to different parts of the world by extending the shelf-life of most food products. Even with this beneficial aspect of nanotechnology, it has not been proven an entire full-proof measure, and the field is still open to changing technology. It suffices to note that nanotechnology has to a big extent succeed in curbing the extent of food wastage due to food spoilage by the microbial infestation. Nanotechnology has focused on fresh foods, ensuring a healthier food by employing nano-delivery systems in the process. The delivery systems are the ones, which carries the food supplements. However, these are certain sets of regulations that must be followed to tame or control the health related risks of nanotechnology in food industries. This paper outlines the role of nanotechnology at different levels of the food industry including, packaging of food, processing of food and the various preservation techniques all aiming to increase the shelf life of the food products.

Introduction

The quest to improve and devise better food preservation techniques by man has existed since the prehistoric times. This antedates from the times that man used to preserve fresh kill in caves. The caves had a dampened environment which kept the kill fresh for some time. The invention of refrigeration techniques in the 21st century then ensued. The use of cellars as well as cold streams were other traditional methods used for food preservation (Alfadul and Elneshwy, 2010). Fermentation and drying existed in the early BCs and what is used today are just improved and modified versions of these concepts (Chellaram et al., 2014). There are a number of popular methods of food preservation that have been used by man in day to day basis including sun drying, roasting, fermenting, salting, smoking, oven baking, carbonation of foods and chemical use or artificial preservatives. The basic working principle behind all these preservation methods rotated around two ideas; slowing down the multiplication of microbial agents or killing them. However, none of the methods were to put use with the complete understanding of the scientific mechanisms behind each of them. There has been evidence of the utilization of these methods of food preservation in the past where the Romans were famous for the introduction and use of pickling for prevention of microbial infestation of the food, while the Egyptians were known for using sun-drying to prevent their foods from spoiling (Abbas et al., 2009). Food jellying by use of honey or sugar was associated with the Greeks as a preservation technique. The first technology innovative breakthrough in preservation techniques came in 1784 by William Cullen who made a crude method of artificial refrigeration. Canning technique and salting of food began in the early 1800s to keep food fresh for a longer period (Abbas et al., 2009). Many scholars in the early 1800s made significant discoveries in preservation techniques; Nicolas Appert, known for the invention of vacuum bottling for the supply of the French troops with food, opened the way for tinning and then canning by Peter Durand in 1810. In 1862, Louis Pasteur introduced pasteurization that enabled wine, beer, and milk to have an extended shelf life.

Understanding how an adequate food security may be determined, how nutritional intakes evolve over time and are influenced by global dynamics are few of the questions scholars are trying to answer. In addition, a great interest is devoted to the changes in consumers’ preferences and expectations as well as to the analysis of food innovations and their impact on the global market. We review the recent and emerging trends in food supply chains of selected sectors (fruits and vegetables, meat, and seafood), and deepen on emerging trends in the food industry. By presenting the evidence provided by the literature and emphasizing the unresolved research questions, we offer a critical view of future directions that should be followed by research agenda.

Introduction

During the last decades, the global dynamics in food production and consumption have evolved rapidly. The FAO estimated that the (per capita) calorie availability of 2,196 kcal /day in 1961 raised to 2,870 kcal/day in 2011 (FAO, 2015). On one hand, the increase in prices has lead to an over-supply, on the other hand the unequal distribution of production and incomes has exacerbated the problems of access to food (Barrett, 2002; Caracciolo & Santeramo, 2013; Otsuka, 2013). As a result, the measurement and investigation of the access to food, a key dimension of food security, has become a priority in developed and developing countries (Barrett, 2010; Leroy et al., 2015; Santeramo, 2015a,b; Muchenje & Mukumbo, 2015). A further aspect of high relevance is the assurance of adequate nutritional quality and quantity, which also impact on food security status. Changes in income and prices have been proved to be potentially disruptive for the correct balancing of the diet (Santeramo & Shabnam, 2015; Zhou & Yu, 2015). Moreover, the recent economic crises, joined to the high price volatility, have had severe consequences on global trade, global production and thus, on global availability of food (Bellemare, 2015; Santeramo et al., 2017). It is not surprising that diets have become less and less balanced. The prevalence of diseases linked to the consumption of unbalanced diets increased. Studies have shown the causality relationships between dietary patterns and lifestyle habits versus chronic illnesses (Jacques & Tucker, 2001; WHO, 2003; King et al., 2009). As such, the extreme importance of eradicating food insecurity, one of the Sustainable Development Goals in developing and developed economies, is pushing research to increase the effort to understand the trends in the global supply chains, the changes in consumers’ expectations, the evolution of the food industry, and the potential impacts of innovations (Parfitt et al., 2010; Gereffi & Lee, 2012). Based on these premises, it has been provided a wide, yet not exhaustive, review on the emerging trends in selected supply chains of the food industry. In particular, selected “case study” are provided: trends in three different food supply chains, namely fruits and vegetables, meat and meat products, and seafood products; the emergence of innovations in the food industry and, in particular, the development of novel foods, the evolution of functional foods and the use of nanotechnology. Recent changes in consumers’ choices have been emphasized and the up to date knowledge has been reviewed so to suggest future direction for research agenda. As for the trends in the global food industry, the increasing use of functional foods (Siro et al., 2008), the development of novel foods industries (Dovey et al., 2008), and the emergence of nanotechnologies in the food sector (Coles & Frewer, 2013) are likely to represent new frontiers worth great attention.

 Food-producing animals (e.g., cattle, chickens, pigs, and turkeys) are the major reservoirs for many foodborne pathogens such as Campylobacter species, non-Typhi 30 serotypes of Salmonella enterica, Shiga toxin-producing strains of Escherichia coli, and Listeria monocytogenes. The zoonotic potential of foodborne pathogens and their ability to produce toxins causing diseases or even death are sufficient to recognize the seriousness of 33the situation. Foodborne pathogens cause millions of cases of sporadic illness and chronic 34 complications, as well as large and challenging outbreaks in many countries and between countries. The magnitude of this problem is demonstrated by the significant proportion of the 1.5 billion diarrheal episodes in children less than 3 years of age that are caused by enteropathogenic microorganisms, which results in more than 3 million deaths per year (EFSA-ECDC, 2016). Surveys estimate that in the United States alone, bacterial enteric pathogens cause 9.4 million episodes of foodborne illness in humans, 55,961 hospitalizations, and 1,351 deaths each year (Scallan et al., 2011). However, it is estimated that the reported incidence of food-borne disease represents less than 1% to 10% of the real incidence (Scallan et al., 2011). The importance of food-producing animals as carriers of pathogenic bacteria is real; for example, beef is reported to be the vector of 7% of the 1.7 million cases of foodborne disease that was recorded during 1996 to 2000 in England and Wales (Anderson et al., 2009).