Food Technology Unit - Tecnologie Alimentari e processi dell’industria alimentare

 

Address: Plesso Food Area, Parco Area delle Scienze, 47/A, 43124 Parma, Italy 

 

Staff

Prof. Davide Barbanti - davide.barbanti@unipr.it

Prof.ssa Eleonora Carini - eleonora.carini@unipr.it

Prof.ssa Emma Chiavaro - emma.chiavaro@unipr.it                          

Prof. Massimiliano Rinaldi - massimiliano.rinaldi@unipr.it                 

Dott.ssa Maria Paciulli - maria.paciulli@unipr.it

Dott. Marcello Alinovi - marcello.alinovi@unipr.it

 

Research Fellows

Dr. Paola Littardi (paola.littardi@unipr.it)

 

Ph.D. Students

Dr. Alessandro Carcelli (alessandro.carcelli@studenti.unipr.it)

Dr. Mia Marchini (mia.marchini@studenti.unipr.it)

 

Research Grants

Dr.ssa Chiara Lenzi (chiara.lenzi@studenti.unipr.it)

Dr.ssa Maria Grazia Tuccio (mariagrazia.tuccio@studenti.unipr.it) 

 

Department:

Department of Food and Drugs

HOW TO REACH US:

 

RESEARCH TOPICS:

Food Technology Unit in Università of Parma was born in 2002. People being part of this Unit belong to the Scientific-Disciplinary Sector AGR/15, they possess very wide educations and specializations and for this reason the research Unit presents pronounced multidisciplinary characteristics.    

Food product and process design

Food product design, based on food safety and compliance with well defined chemico-physical and sensorial standards, comprises the development of new products or qualitative improvement of existing ones. the most important drivers for the Unit are (i) stability of the product, (ii) improvement of nutritional value, (iii) substitution of E numbers with clean label functional ingredients and (iv) sustainability trough valorisation of by-products and wastes. 

Food product and process design concerns activities regarding improvement of efficacy and/or efficiency of traditional processing techniques or development of innovative ones (thermal and non-thermal) by constantly testing their impact on the product.

Within this topic, the Unit employs mathematical software for the prediction of chemical and physical phenomena during food processing that occurs from raw materials to finished products. These models, after a validation step could be applied for scaling up to industrial processes and could allow increasing efficiency of design activity.   

 

International cooperation with Developing Countries

International cooperation with African Countries with the aim of valorization of local food products, processing by sustainable technologies and education in the food science field

 

Most important publications in the last 10 years (2017-2020):

1. Rinaldi, M., Paciulli, M., Caligiani, A., Scazzina, F., & Chiavaro, E. (2017). Sourdough fermentation and chestnut flour in gluten-free bread: A shelf-life evaluation. Food chemistry, 224, 144-152.

2. Paciulli, M., Rinaldi, M., Rodolfi, M., Ganino, T., Morbarigazzi, M., & Chiavaro, E. (2019). Effects of high hydrostatic pressure on physico-chemical and structural properties of two pumpkin species. Food Chemistry, 274, 281-290.

3. Boukid, F., Carini, E., Curti, E., Bardini, G., Pizzigalli, E., & Vittadini, E. (2018). Effectiveness of vital gluten and transglutaminase in the improvement of physico-chemical properties of fresh bread. LWT, 92, 465-470.

4. Diantom, A., Boukid, F., Carini, E., Curti, E., & Vittadini, E. (2020). Can potato fiber efficiently substitute xanthan gum in modulating chemical properties of tomato products?. Food Hydrocolloids, 101, 105508.

5. Curti, E., Carini, E., Cobo, M. F., Bocher, T., & Vittadini, E. (2017). The use of two-dimensional NMR relaxometry in bread staling: a valuable tool?. Food Chemistry, 237, 766-772.

6. Pugliese, A., Paciulli, M., Chiavaro, E., & Mucchetti, G. (2019). Application of differential scanning calorimetry to freeze-dried milk and milk fractions. Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry, 137(2), 703-709.

7. Alinovi, M., Cordioli, M., Francolino, S., Locci, F., Ghiglietti, R., Monti, L., Tidona, F., Mucchetti., G., & Giraffa, G., (2018). Effect of fermentation-produced camel chymosin on quality of Crescenza cheese. International Dairy Journal 84, 72-78.

8. Alinovi, M., & Mucchetti, G. (2020). Effect of freezing and thawing processes on high-moisture Mozzarella cheese rheological and physical properties. LWT, 124, 109137

9. Rinaldi, M., Malavasi, M., Cordioli, M., & Barbanti, D. (2018). Investigation of influence of container geometry and starch concentration on thermal treated in-package food models by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Food and Bioproducts Processing, 108, 1-11.

10.  Alinovi, M., & Mucchetti, G., (2020). A coupled photogrammetric - finite element method approach to model irregular shape product freezing: Mozzarella cheese case. Food and Bioproducts Processing. IN PRESS DOI: 10.1016/j.fbp.2020.03.010

 

Most important collaborations

International 

University of Lomè, Togo

University of Rwanda, Rwanda

Cornell University, USA

 

National

·       Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria - (CREA) Centro per la zootecnia e l’acquacoltura di Lodi

·       Università di Milano, Dipartimento di Scienze per gli Alimenti, la Nutrizione e l'Ambiente

·       Università di Sassari, Dipartimento di Agraria

·       Università di Firenze, DAGRI

·       Università di Bari, Di.S.S.P.A.

·       Università di Teramo, Facoltà di bioscienze e tecnologie agro-alimentari e ambientali

·       Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-Alimentari

 

ACTIVE PROJECTS:

·       PRIN2017 – “Studio e ottimizzazione del trattamento al plasma freddo per il miglioramento della qualità e sicurezza degli alimenti (Plasmafood)”

·       Progetto AGER – “Sustainability of the Olive - oil System (S.O.S.)”

 

CONCLUDED PROJECTS of relevance

Progetto MIPAAF – BIOCAST “La biofunzionalità della filiera del castagno dalla farina agli scarti”

Progetto PSR 2014-2020 - REGIONE EMILIA-ROMAGNA BIOVANT “Creazione di un modello sostenibile di best practices per la valorizzazione di varietà antiche di frumento tenero nella Regione Emilia Romagna.