Integral simulation-optimization approach for ecodesign of food manufacturing processes
Résumé
Ecodesign of food manufacturing processes aims at optimizing their environmental, technological and socio-economic performance while securing the overall quality of the food. Cumulative legislative, economic and ecological pressure along with a growing demand for food in developing and emerging, and functionalized food in Western countries call for revision of the state-of-the-art food manufacturing. The aforementioned constraints merely reduce the degrees of freedom with respect to both design and process control and prevent the search for a real compromise between the different and often conflicting technological, economic and environmental objectives of a process. The purpose of this paper hence is to propose an integral simulation-optimization ecodesign approach (ISOA), especially designed for food manufacturing processes and to address the research questions in order to promote a sustainable food industry. The ISOA encompasses simulation of both the production of utilities and the food process itself considering the generation of waste, wastewater and by-products in addition to environmental and socio-economic impact assessment, multi-objective optimization and multi-criteria decision-making thus directing at an optimal process control. The ISOA likewise considers the food quality including bacterial safety and the nutritional, techno-functional and gustative properties of the food product. However, implementation of the ISOA proves difficult due to the deficient understanding of the impact of processes on the food properties and the subsequent lack of models. Therefore, as a basis, systematic data acquisition is essential with particular focus on the influence of process parameters on the different food properties. Quantitative indicators representing the food quality need to be established. The development of dynamic models for food manufacturing processes is necessary integrating the inevitable cleaning stages. Ultimately, advancement in environmental and socio-economic impact assessment including standardization of evaluation procedures to provide reliable indicators and results is also required.