Food processing must evolve to solve global challenges

Humans have continuously evolved the agrifood system to achieve adequate, safe, nutritious and, more recently, sustainable food supplies. Industrialization introduced modern farming equipment, food factories, and global distribution networks, substantially increasing production while improving safety, access and resource efficiency. Despite these advances, agrifood systems remain major contributors to environmental pressures and sometimes produce food of low nutritional value. Consequently, food systems must evolve to reflect and balance changing consumer needs and priorities, technological progress, and planetary boundaries to ensure adequate nutrition for a growing and diverse population. As a central element of the agrifood chain, advancements in food processing can better align products with these goals. Drawing on insights from 1)population dynamics, needs and preferences, 2)food production and processing, and 3)impacts of food on healthy diets, this perspective examines how food processing can support nutritious, safe, and affordable diets while building resilience across the food system. Food processing is not an isolated technical activity, but a strategic interface through which upstream drivers (e.g., demographic change, agricultural variability) are translated into downstream outcomes (e.g., nutritional quality, consumer acceptance). Collectively, this perspective delivers an interdisciplinary reflection on the challenges food systems face and contextualizes how these elements influence meeting global food demands.

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Publication Details

Journal
Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition
Published
2026-07-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2026.2699813
Primary Topic
Nutrition, Genetics, and Disease
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Food processing must evolve to solve global challenges

Henry Jaeger, Diana Bogueva, James G. Lyng, Christoph Hartmann et al.
Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition
Nutrition, Genetics, and Disease
article

Food processing must evolve to solve global challenges

Henry Jaeger, Diana Bogueva, James G. Lyng, Christoph Hartmann, Tara Grauwet, Vincenzo Fogliano, Felix Schottroff, Eileen R. Gibney, Olga Martı́n-Belloso, Diána Bánáti, Hugo de Vries, Elizabeth A. Ainsworth, Huub LELIEVELD, Lilia Ahrné, Anet Režek Jambrak, E. Dolores O’Riordan, Denise M. Mitrano, Erich J. Windhab
article en

Abstract

Humans have continuously evolved the agrifood system to achieve adequate, safe, nutritious and, more recently, sustainable food supplies. Industrialization introduced modern farming equipment, food factories, and global distribution networks, substantially increasing production while improving safety, access and resource efficiency. Despite these advances, agrifood systems remain major contributors to environmental pressures and sometimes produce food of low nutritional value. Consequently, food systems must evolve to reflect and balance changing consumer needs and priorities, technological progress, and planetary boundaries to ensure adequate nutrition for a growing and diverse population. As a central element of the agrifood chain, advancements in food processing can better align products with these goals. Drawing on insights from 1)population dynamics, needs and preferences, 2)food production and processing, and 3)impacts of food on healthy diets, this perspective examines how food processing can support nutritious, safe, and affordable diets while building resilience across the food system. Food processing is not an isolated technical activity, but a strategic interface through which upstream drivers (e.g., demographic change, agricultural variability) are translated into downstream outcomes (e.g., nutritional quality, consumer acceptance). Collectively, this perspective delivers an interdisciplinary reflection on the challenges food systems face and contextualizes how these elements influence meeting global food demands.

Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition
University College Dublin (IE), University of Copenhagen (DK), Universitat de Lleida (ES), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US), University of Zagreb (HR), Curtin University (AU), University of Szeged (HU), ETH Zurich (CH), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR), Sustainability Institute (ZA), Société de Développement des Forêts (CI), Institute of Food Science & Technology (GB), Institut Agro Montpelier (FR), Ecologie microbienne (FR), Global Initiative on Psychiatry (GE), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH), Wageningen University & Research (NL)
Universität für Bodenkultur Wien
Zero hunger
Openalex Percentile: Top 8%
Nutrition, Genetics, and Disease
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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