Lopes, Carla Martins

Martins-Lopes, Paula

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151C.M. LOPES and P. MARTINS-LOPES: Preface, Food Technol. Biotechnol. 51 (2) 151 (2013)PrefaceDevelopment in Food Industry:Innovative Functional Food and Food Technology StrategiesIn the new millennium, innovative functional food (i.e. nutraceuticals) has aroused the attention of the scien-tific community, food manufacturers and consumers. The era of these products is rapidly expanding and newresearch in this area is constantly being conducted. Apart from the nutritional value of nutraceuticals, theiraddition into food matrices may have a significant impact on health conditions (including physiological benefitsor disease-preventing properties). Based on these considerations, several technological food approaches havebeen explored and even applied to enhance food proprieties (e.g. polyphenols, vitamins, antioxidants), to pre-serve the product freshness and safety (e.g. new types of food packaging, prevention of food allergenic reactions)and to guarantee the authenticity of food products (e.g. traceability).The aim of this issue is to collect and update the state of the art of the scientific perspective and techno-logical innovations for nutraceutical processing and technology available to guarantee food safety and reliability.Therefore, a multidisciplinary team of international experts discuss the most relevant topics in this area. After apeer-review process following the standard of the journal, six manuscripts were accepted for publication.An important food safety issue is related to allergenic food ingredients. In this special issue, Barros andCosme identified the allergenic components of the most important causes of food allergies. The main methodsthat comprise both precision and sensitivity, used to detect and quantify allergenicity in food products, havealso been explored and are being normally used to protect allergic consumers.Polyphenols are ubiquitous natural food compounds that present important beneficial health activities (e.g.chemopreventive, cytostatic, immunomodulatory, bacteriostatic/bactericidal, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, andantioxidant). Propolis, wine and many medicinal plants used in everyday life as functional food represent richsources of polyphenols. Based on these considerations, Medi}-[ari} et al. gave an overview on the authenticityand geographical traceability based on polyphenolic profile of Croation propolis and wine.Favaro-Trindade et al. addressed the state of the art of the application of spray chilling method to encap-sulate different nutraceuticals (e.g. vitamins, minerals, proteins) and demonstrated several advantages of thisapproach: hygroscopicity reduction, taste and odour masking, solubility change, physical protection, and con-trolled release of food ingredients.Nanotechnology applied to the agro-food sector involves, nowadays, a significant number of researchersworldwide. Lopes et al. reviewed the major concepts linked to nanostructures and nano-based instruments usedin the food sector, as well as their applications in agro-food products. Consumers’ apprehension regarding foodstability and safety issues is also considered.The traceability of food products is a major concern for consumers and producers in order to guarantee fairtrade and the option to select the food products more consciously. The use of molecular markers is a procedurethat can accurately identify the species/varieties/breeds present in the food products. Martins-Lopes et al. re-viewed the use of PCR-based molecular markers, and explored some applications in different areas: detection ofgenetically modified organisms, denomination of origin protection, and the detection of allergenic and intoler-ance reactions in the meat sector.The resource of new molecular tools in order to enhance food proprieties is reviewed by Martinelli et al. Theauthors addressed the research based on gene transfer applied to several food crops and animal production. Thegene modulation (i.e. gene knock-down and knock-out) was also extensively examined considering exogenousRNA-based gene regulation and RNAi technology in both plant and animals.We would like to thank all the authors of this special issue for contributing with high quality manuscripts.We are also very grateful to all the reviewers, who had the kindness of critically evaluating the articles in atimely manner. We are thankful to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Food Technology and Biotechnology, ProfessorVladimir Mr{a, for giving us the opportunity of organizing this special issue. We express our very special thanksand high appreciation to Zrinka and Iva and the entire editorial team of the journal for their high capacity incoordinating the communication and the editorial process.Guest editors:Carla M. Lopes Paula Martins-Lopes

Preface: development in food industry: innovative functional food and food technology strategies

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Preface: development in food industry: innovative functional food and food technology strategies

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