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.