Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Evaluating coffee powder characteristics effect on brewed coffee with ...
Innovation of food (bio)processing using smart and mild technologies and fermentation to improve nutritional quality while ensuring safety and environmental sustainability throughout the shelf life of foods. Nutritional quality and biodiversity are targeted through both advanced and sustainable processes (including encapsulation) to preserve and improve at-risk (micro)nutrient composition of relevant food categories and exploiting microbiological and biotechnological applications to impact on nutritional quality. Such (bio)technological approaches (e.g., fermentation, enzyme treatments, etc.) are validated by process markers also directed to ensure food production safety and quality targeting new food habits (e.g., ready to eat food and novel food consumption) and sustainability, promoting production efficiency and utilisation of alternative sources (in connection with Spoke 2 and 3).
Development or improvement of at least 3 technological approaches to innovate food production (including cooking and shelf life) in terms of nutritional quality, safety, and sustainability (M24)
Grinding coffee produces particles with elevated electrostatic charge, resulting in various negative outcomes such as clumping, particle dispersion, and spark discharges. This electrostatic aggregation between particles at the brewing stage impacts the accessibility of liquid to solids, leading to fluctuations in extraction quality. These aggregates pose challenges for preparing reproducibly tasty espresso. In addition, if the grinding system is placed inside the coffee machine itself, particles with a high electrostatic charge tend to move and stick to the internal surfaces of the machine, reducing the amount of powder available for coffee brewing. In this research, our aim is to examine and suggest technological enhancements for coffee machines, assessing the influence of this technology on the extraction of (poly)phenolic molecules from coffee powder. Additionally, our goal is to propose an innovative technology to achieve effective extraction with reduced coffee powder usage. This approach could minimize food waste generation and improve the sustainability of the entire process.
The research will involve different activities as reported below.
