Dear students,

As you already know, food processing is the transformation of agricultural products (raw materials) into food, or of one form of food into other forms. 
Food handling and processing are seasonal in nature, both in terms of request for items and accessibility of unprocessed raw materials but food processors wanting to meet the customer necessities and willings would like a ceaseless supply of raw materials, whose composition and quality are consistent, and whose costs are unsurprising. 

As you can understand this can't happen as the foremost crops have well established harvest times, and even in the case of raw materials which are accessible all through the year, there are differencies in volume of production, and variety in chemical composition. Thus, processors have to contract ahead with producers to synchronize their needs with raw material production.

The aim of this session is to consider the properties of raw materials in connection to food processing, and to outline critical viewpoints of handling, transport, storage and post harvest preparation operations of raw materials, that take part in the field or/and to the factory, earlier to the run of processing operations.We'll also discuss about the changes  that occur in physical, chemical, microbiological and organoleptic properties of material and will address some concerns about their impact on the environment and the connection of this processing step with SDGs. Last but not least, we'll explore some STEM careers on this field of food technology.