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H. J. WATZKE, Food Science, Nestlé Research Centre, Vers-Chez-Les-Blanc, PO Box 44, Lausanne 26, CH-1000, Switzerland Nanotechnology is an emergent multidisciplinary field between science and engineering. It promises to provide means for designing and controlling material properties by manipulating molecules on the nanometer length scale. Discussions have focused on three impact areas: a) nanotools, instrumentation and equipment allowing to explore the nano realm, b) nanomaterials, materials with tailor-made physical, chemical and biological properties controlled by defined molecular structures and dynamics, and c) nanodevices, miniaturized sensors and actuators permitting manipulation and control in the nanometer dimensions. Conventionally, the making of foods has been and is a “top-down” process (e.g. homogenisation, mixing and shearing). One of the strongest impacts of nanotechnology on food processing and products can be expected from the insight that foods might be built from “bottom-up”. This insight is founded on the simple fact that we have dealt in food science and technology with the ultimate nanomaterials from the beginning on: with biological raw materials and the ingredients produced from them. Knowledge about the intrinsic material properties of biological raw materials will allow to base the formation of food structures, and therefore of perceivable product attributes, on new processing avenues. Nanotechnology promises not only the creation of novel and precisely defined material properties, it also promises that these materials will have self-assembling, self-healing and maintaining properties. The resulting benefit will be materials with built-in “services” and customized applications. In the area of food products, such nanotechnological abilities would allow to build-in “services” of relevance to our consumers: convenience, pleasure, and most importantly, precisely targeted nutritional and health benefits. Ultimately, food nanotechnology might have it strongest impact in opening the avenue towards personalized nutrition products.
Session 45, Nanoscale science, engineering and technology for food safety and quality
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