Division of Plant Product Quality
The content and composition of different components in fruits, berries and vegetables naturally vary greatly and this can be used to create end products with different properties.
Plant qualities in food
The specific properties of a plant determine what the plant can be used for. Wheat is an excellent crop for baked goods because of a specific type of protein that no other plant contains, which helps the dough rise and maintain its shape. Fruits, vegetables or bread that look, smell and taste good, influence the consumers and make them more likely to buy the product. High levels of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other nutritional components make different crops attractive as healthy foods. To replace chemicals and petroleum-based products, biomass from different crops becomes more attractive as a raw material for the production of bio-based packaging materials, chemicals, food additives, dyes, etc.
What we do
We study the content and composition of different components in crops and how these components can result in a higher quality of the final product. The use of different crops, varieties, cultivation methods, e.g. organic and conventional cultivation, and differences in post-harvest handling are important factors for regulating and modifying the content of components. We use modeling to predict which crop, variety, cultivation method and post-harvest handling are the best choice with regard to the desired quality of the final product and we study the possibilities of controlling the content of specific components.
We analyze horticultural crops (fruits, vegetables, root crops) as well as agricultural crops (cereals, oilseeds, potatoes, hemp and other industrial crops). The plant material covers everything from old varieties and landraces from different parts of the world to modern varieties from Sweden and other countries.
We are mainly interested in proteins, fibers, antioxidants and other nutritional components, but also in polysaccharide-related components for the manufacture of chemicals. Our research is focused on food production, but we are also interested in how to use side streams from different production lines, including food processing, to obtain higher value-added products that can be used in the pharmacological, food, chemical and packaging industries.
