Societal role of food processing: envisaging the future

Abstract During the past 80 years, a vast volume of science and technological know-how has been assembled to enable food processing to comply with its fundamental commitment of providing food security to society (i.e., food availability, accessibility, safety, and nutritional security). Food processing has additionally been expected to meet society’s demands for palatability, convenience, health benefits beyond nutrition, and sustainability. Such an enormous task has required the participation of professionals from multidisciplinary food science, technology, and engineering, working in cooperation with other sectors such as agriculture, industry, and government. Notwithstanding the integrated approach, feeding the world is an ever-increasing challenge because of such problems as an expanding world population, constraints on agricultural production, and the constant dependence on corporate and personal responsibilities. Striving always for further improvement, food processing will continue to serve present and future societies. A world without processed foods would be as hard to imagine as one that would depend only on natural medicines.