Mario Ferruzzi, of North Carolina State University, spoke at the event, "Aligning the Food System to Meet Dietary Needs: Fruits and Vegetables," on June 2-3, 2017, at the UC Davis Conference Center.

Abstract: Post-harvest losses of perishable fruits and vegetables remain a critical hurdle to consistent delivery of nutrient dense plant foods to at-risk populations in Sub Saharan Africa. Current efforts within the USAID-funded Feed the Future Food Processing and Post Harvest Innovation Lab (FPL) seek to leverage food processing as a means to drive the value chain and deliver products with stabilized and improved nutritional characteristics. We have an integrated research and product development strategy with the goal to address demand for affordable, convenient and nutritious products by application of food processing to stabilize high value fruits and vegetables and to develop new products to deliver nutrient dense fruit and vegetable micronutrients. This presentation will briefly review solar drying and low cost extrusion as means to stabilize high value fruits (mango, carrot and papaya) and nutrient dense indigenous plants (moringa, baobab and hibiscus). The applicability of these technologies alone and in combination will be described in terms of generation of ingredients suitable for formulation into new processed food products such as instant cereals that serve to stabilize and diversify the fruit and vegetable product options for at risk consumers. Micronutrient recovery, impacts to micronutrient bioaccessibility and final product quality parameters will be described.

(Abstract from event agenda. Presentation not available.)