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PROCESSING
Why process food? Johannes Baensch
When I was a child, my grandmother would make coffee using the only method available to her at the time, by roasting the raw beans in a frying pan on the stove.
T
he beans had to be heated to a very high temperature and mixed continuously to avoid scorching, or uneven roasting. Afterwards they had to be cooled quickly, to stop them over-roasting. They then needed to be ground, the grounds mixed with hot water, and finally, the liquid coffee separated from the used grounds. All in all, it was a time-consuming process that required a good deal of effort and concentration to get right.
More convenient My grandmother enjoyed a good cup of coffee, but she was not an expert coffee roaster. Nor did she want to be, much like the majority of people who love drinking it. While it’s true that today, some people are passionate about roasting and grinding their favourite drink themselves, most don’t have the time or the desire to do so. That’s where our industry has made a difference - replacing labour-intensive methods with more efficient ones and creating consistent, often tastier, products as a result.
Delicate balance What’s interesting is that when a person makes a perfect cup of coffee by hand, the element of craftsmanship is acknowledged. But when the same process is performed industrially, there’s little recognition of the expertise involved. In fact, most industrial food processing techniques are the outcome of years of research and development. Many are 12
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modelled on artisanal and traditional methods, and are often a delicate balance of science and art.
Local knowledge Take fermentation, thought to be one of the oldest recorded techniques for food preservation. Fermentation is a method of biotransformation - in other words, the use of natural processes to improve the flavour, digestibility or shelf-life of food ingredients. It has been used in many products worldwide for centuries, particularly in traditional Asian dishes. These include tempeh, traditional Indonesian cuisine made from fermented soy beans, and kimchi, fermented vegetables with chilli, which is particularly popular in Korea. At Nestlé we use natural wheat gluten fermentation to produce our Maggi liquid seasoning and soya fermentation for our Maggi bouillon cubes in West Africa. We know that the best way to understand traditional methods of processing ingredients is to work with the local cultures they originate from. That’s why we partner with research institutes, universities and government agencies worldwide, to learn from local knowledge while sharing our own experience.
Alternative proteins But food production cannot only be about working with recognisable ingredients. As the global population expands, demand increases, and our resources become scarcer, it’s
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