Call for partners to join aPPPlied project

Are you curious to test if Pulsed Electric Field can help you to improve the (energy) efficiency of processing your fresh food products? Can release of intracellular liquid enhance dewatering or extraction of valuable or undesired components from your food product? Are you already familiar with the positive attributes of PEF, but unable to demonstrate these at industrially relevant scale to produce test batches? Consider joining the APPPLIED project! 

Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) is a processing technology that is currently widely used in the potato processing industry acting on cell disintegration, resulting in softening of the texture and creating smoother and more elastic tissue. It improves amongst others the cutting behaviour, leads to less starch reduction, a reduction in fat uptake and less breaking of potato sticks.

Many other applications of PEF as a pre-step in energy-consuming processes, such as drying, are suggested in well-substantiated scientific literature, but overall PEF remains largely underutilized in the food processing industry. Examples relevant to drying industry include;

• Reduction of drying time of 30-57% when PEF was used as a pre-treatment for freeze-drying^1,2 or reduction of 30-70% drying time for convective drying of different plant-based materials ³
• Reduction of drying rate and improvement of colour in spinach during hot air drying³
• Insertion of cryoprotectants with PEF to improve functionality of probiotics during spray-drying⁴

Additionally, current experimental development of PEF-based processing is often hampered by the practical absence of relevant up- and downstream processing infrastructure to complete the full process from fresh produce starting material to ready-to-consume food product. This often results in the inability to assess the real (integral) benefits of PEF and the inability to produce sufficient samples for subsequent testing.  

To overcome these hurdles Bodec, Elea and Wageningen Food & Biobased Research (WFBR) have joined their forces in the APPPLIED project tendering for 2025 TKI Public Private Partnership co-financing. APPPLIED will contribute to advancing PEF-technology by

I) Demonstrating that PEF can improve process efficiency and remove hurdles in new, previously unexplored, food processes, and 

II) Bringing existing PEF-based innovations closer to full-scale commercial application by practically offering the most suitable up- and downstream unit operations around the PEF-process at relevant scale. This enables a comprehensive techno-economic analysis, and production of sufficient sample material for further product testing.

The APPPLIED partners are happy to discuss how relevant exploration and development cases from the food processing industry can be incorporated in this project to suit your objectives.

Please contact Jeroen van Bon (Business Development Manager, Jeroen.vanbon@wur.nl , +31 317 481 285) or Rian Timmermans (Scientist Mild Preservation and Processing, Rian.Timmermans@wur.nl, +31 317 481305) for more information.

¹ Al-Sayed et al 2018 Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) as pre-treatment for freeze-drying of plant tissues (inrae.fr)

² Lammerskitten et al. 2019 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifset.2019.102211

³ Wiktor et al. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815781-7.00001-9, Yamakage et al. 2021  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifset.2021.102615

⁴ Vaessen et al. 2022 Pulsed electric field pre-treatment for spray drying of probiotics — Research@WUR