Multi-Criteria Reverse Engineering for Food: Genesis and Ongoing Advances

Multi-criteria reverse engineering (MRE) has arisen from the cross-fertilization of advances in mathematics and shifts in social demand. MRE, thus, marks a progressive switch (a) from empirical to formal approaches able to simultaneously factor in diverse parameters, such as environment, economics, and health; (b) from mono-criterion optimization to multi-criteria decision analysis; (c) from forward engineering, observing the results of process conditions, to reverse engineering, selecting the right process conditions for a target output. The food sector has been slow to adopt reverse engineering, but interest is surging now that the industry is looking to shift production towards personalized food. MRE has followed a heterogeneous development trajectory and found applications in different disciplines. The scope of this review spans MRE applications in the food sector covering food packaging and food consumption and focuses on demonstrating potentialities of MRE in a complex field like food. We explain how MRE enables the development of sustainable processes, looking at similar approaches used in sectors other than food. Building on this extensive review, we sketch out some guidelines on approaches to be used in future MRE applications in food, working up from the problem statement.