Since 2021, the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) have jointly organized and carried out the “Strategic Research on the Development of China’s Engineering Science and Technology in the Next 20 Years (2021-2040)”, which aims to provide support for the systematic planning and forward-looking deployment of the development of the country’s engineering science and technology as well as basic research in the related fields.

In order to improve the foresight and scientificity of the strategic research, the project organizes and carries out the Technology Foresight of Engineering Science and Technology 2040, which aims to more accurately grasp the general trend of the world’s scientific and technological development, examine the directions that may produce major scientific and technological breakthroughs, and select, configure and plan the path of technological development focuses in the light of the country’s strategic needs, capabilities and development goals, including information and electronics, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, energy and mining, Environment, Ecology and Green Manufacturing, Space, Ocean and Earth Observation, Urbanization and Infrastructure, Transportation, Agriculture and Food, Medicine, Health and Population Health, and Public Security, and other 11 technology foresight areas.

Recently, the Chinese Academy of Engineering has publicly solicited opinions on the list of technology foresight options, and the Nutrition and Health Subcenter of the Chinese Knowledge Center for Engineering Science and Technology has summarized the technology areas related to food security, food safety, agricultural product processing and food manufacturing, and medicine and health and population health, of which the specific contents of the areas of agricultural product processing, food manufacturing and food safety are as follows:

Agricultural product processing, food manufacturing and food safety field

(Containing 12 technical directions)

Development of new resources and materials for agricultural products

Due to the continuous growth of the world’s population and the increasing shortage of food resources, human beings have to develop new resources of agricultural products in order to obtain sufficient food.

It is predicted that our population will reach 1.6 billion in 2030, with a market demand for about 640 million tons of food, and a market demand for about 30 billion kilograms of edible vegetable oil, with a shortfall of about 23 billion kilograms based on our current supply. Therefore, to fundamentally protect national food security, to meet the development of modern food industry and the people’s growing material needs, it is imperative to seek new food resources, the development of new food materials.

In addition, the nutritional level of our nationals has been improving year by year, but the pressure of life and lifestyle are not satisfactory, especially in the balanced nutrition problem is more prominent. And new food resources as a balanced nutrition supplements, reasonable diet regulator shows an important role.

Some new food resources can also reasonably supplement the lack of effective nutrients in food, especially special nutrients such as trace elements. Therefore, the development of new food materials is crucial to adapt to consumer requirements, improve food quality and enhance the competitiveness of China’s food industry.

Keywords: new resources of agricultural products, new materials, food security

Biotransformation of active factors of agricultural products

and precise regulation technology

Healthy functional active factors of agricultural products play an important role in food quality and function enhancement, but at present, the traditional active factors of agricultural products are mostly extracted by animal and plant extraction method or chemical synthesis method, and there are often bottlenecks in production such as insufficient source of raw materials in the traditional extraction method, serious pollution in the production of chemical method, and the existence of allergens in the products extracted from animal and plant tissues, which restrict the development of the industry. Therefore, in the future, it is necessary to independently develop a series of microbial cell factories with independent intellectual property rights for the active factors of agricultural products, which will greatly enrich the types of active factors of agricultural products synthesized by microbial method;

To establish strategies and methods to regulate the balance between cell growth and product synthesis, to globally optimize the microbial cell factories for synthesizing active factors of agricultural products, to significantly improve the efficiency of microbial preparation of active factors of agricultural products, and to enhance the overall technological level of the field of green manufacturing of active factors of food and agricultural products in China.

Keywords: agricultural active factors, microorganisms, synthesis balance regulation

Efficient Expression and Application of Specialty Enzyme Preparations

and application of key technologies

Green, low-carbon and high-efficiency bioprocessing centered on enzymes is the development trend in the field of international agricultural product processing.

At present, China still lacks independent intellectual property rights of enzyme preparation for agricultural products processing, and agricultural products bioprocessing technology is backward, with low productivity and large energy and water consumption, so it is urgent to develop agricultural products enzymatic bioprocessing technology system and realize integrated innovation.

According to statistics, the domestic enzyme preparation market will be about 15 billion RMB in 2021, however, more than 70% of the market is monopolized by international companies. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, among which the lack of efficient, safe expression system and food enzyme varieties with independent intellectual property rights are the most critical factors.

Efficient expression system is the core of food enzyme production, and is also the key factor of whether food enzyme can realize industrial production. Due to the lack of basic research in China, the efficient system has not been successfully constructed. This status quo not only binds the development of related enzyme production enterprises in China, but also forms an extremely unfavorable impact on the healthy and rapid development of China’s food industry.

In addition, there are only more than 50 kinds of enzymes approved for use in China, which are far lower than those in developed countries. Therefore, it is of great significance to develop a highly efficient and safe food-grade expression system with independent intellectual property rights and more food enzyme varieties with independent intellectual property rights to break through the constraints of international multinational enterprises and to promote the healthy development of China’s food enzyme preparation industry.

Keywords: enzyme preparation, expression system, bioprocessing

cell factory technology for agricultural products

and gene editing

Traditional agricultural products are mainly produced from animal and plant tissues, and the production method is mainly based on physical and biological processing, facing problems such as tight food resources, high energy consumption for processing and serious environmental pollution.

The breakthrough of microbial manufacturing technology for agricultural products is expected to solve or alleviate the above problems faced by traditional food production.

On the one hand, there are many kinds of microbial resources, including food manufacturing microorganisms (bacteria, yeast, fungi), edible bacteria and probiotic microorganisms, etc., and the food made from them has the advantages of being green and natural, nutritious, healthy and tasty, which is the core strategic resource to support the development of the modern food industry and scientific and technological innovation;

In addition, in the new form of per capita arable land area in China continues to decrease, food microbial resources can be used as an effective supplement to staple food, which helps to ensure the safe supply of food in China.

On the other hand, food microbial manufacturing is the mainstream development direction of the international food industry, and it is also the technical basis for the development of new types of food and food raw materials in the future, such as cell-cultured meat, cell-cultured eggs, cell-cultured milk, etc. A breakthrough in the bottleneck of food microbial manufacturing technology will help China’s food biomanufacturing industry to further upgrade and develop, and realize efficient, green and sustainable development of the food industry, and at the same time, will lead the international development direction of food microbial manufacturing technology.

Keywords: cell factory, cell culture, gene editing

Multidimensional Quality Evaluation Technology for Agricultural Products

Developed countries attach great importance to the study of consumer consumption habits and consumption characteristics, based on consumption habits and consumption characteristics of agricultural resources to carry out “spatial and temporal” quality evaluation, not only to consider when to harvest, storage and transportation processes, freshness and other “time” quality evaluation, but also to consider varieties, origins, parts and other “time” quality evaluation. Considering the evaluation of “spatial” quality such as variety, origin and part. At the same time, the “four-dimensional” qualities of edible quality, nutritional quality, processing quality and safety quality were comprehensively evaluated.

In this study, we carry out “spatial and temporal” evaluation of China’s bulk grain and oil, fruits and vegetables, livestock, aquatic products, specialty agricultural raw materials and their products, and construct a four-dimensional “four-dimensional” quality database of edible quality, nutritional quality, processing quality, and safety quality, as well as their characteristic qualities;

Establish an index system and evaluation standards for the evaluation of raw materials for different products; research and develop key technologies such as rapid, non-destructive quality testing, discrimination, grading, classification and segmentation;

Create automated, intelligent rapid quality analysis core equipment, and guide the planting and breeding refinement and regionalization of China’s agricultural products through the popularization and application of the technology and equipment to realize the specialization of raw materials, production standardization, feature identification, product identification and distribution branding of the whole industrial chain of agricultural products production, marketing and addition, promote the structural reform of China’s agricultural supply side, take the road of high-quality development with high quality and price, and provide strong scientific and technological support for the promotion of China’s rural industrial revitalization strategy to provide strong scientific and technological support.

Keywords: agricultural products, quality evaluation, database, digital characterization

China Brewing Fermentation Fermented Food Modernization Manufacturing

Key Technologies for Modernization, Manufacturing and Intelligent Upgrading of Brewed Fermented Foods

Brewing fermented food mainly includes alcohol, spices, fruits and vegetables and dairy fermented products, etc. The total output value exceeded 2.0 trillion yuan in 2018, an increase of 2.5 times compared with that of 2013, which contributes significantly to boosting domestic demand and promoting high economic growth.

However, the fermentation industry is generally characterized by key bottlenecks such as poor stability of product batch production, low level of quality control, low resource utilization, low level of intelligent manufacturing, lack of advantageous strains of independent property rights and fermenters, and inadequate food safety guarantee system, etc. Focusing on the bottlenecks of China’s brewing and fermentation food manufacturing, in-depth research and analysis of key influencing factors related to product quality, such as environmental factors and microorganisms, reveals that Focusing on the key microorganisms and environmental factors, we will explore the internal correlation between key microorganisms, environmental factors and product quality;

Focusing on key microorganisms and environmental factors, we will explore the establishment of efficient and safe targeted selection and breeding of high-throughput dominant strains and their metabolic control, systems biology of microbial groups associated with environmental factors, and functional microbial combinatorial fermentation;

Through new core technologies such as flavoromics and flavor chemistry, build a library of fermented food characteristic flavor profiles, and combine the environmental factors-microbial combination fermentation technology system to establish a new process of characteristic and efficient fermentation with precise regulation of nutrition and flavor;

Combined with the research and development of modern intelligent manufacturing technology, establish a sound energy management system and innovate green manufacturing and clean production technology.

The above key technologies can provide guarantee for the stable, efficient, safe and green production of fermented food in China.

Keywords: fermentation, flavor, microorganism, intelligent manufacturing

Modernization of Prepared Vegetable Processing

and personalized production key technology

The rapid development of modern society has put forward higher demands for dietary taste, nutrition and health. The cooking of traditional Chinese cuisine in China is mainly supported by the experience of masters and cooking skills, which makes the production process cumbersome and inefficient, and the standardization and quality stability of the products difficult to guarantee, making it difficult for Chinese cuisine to meet the needs of consumers for Chinese cuisine under the fast-paced life.

In view of the overall low level of industrialized development of Chinese cuisine, the lack of key technologies, the poor applicability of key equipment, the poor industrial foundation, and the low degree of satisfaction of personalized demand, based on the new demand for the industrialized development of Chinese cuisine, we will vigorously develop the key technologies and equipments of pre-prepared dishes with independent intellectual property rights and adapted to the industrialization of Chinese cuisine, and break through the key equipment and key technologies for seasoning, cooking, packaging, sterilizing, logistics, shelf-life, reheating, etc., so that we will be able to achieve the best results from the Chinese cuisine industrialization. Key equipment and key technology, from the Chinese cuisine of the main ingredients, ingredients and seasonings of the three levels of all-round development of finished products, commercialization, personalized prepared dishes products, the establishment of standardized and modularized prepared dishes standard technology system, effectively enhance China’s independent innovation capacity of prepared dishes, improve the level of industrialization of the prepared dishes technology, and promote the development of prepared dishes as a new industry.

Keywords: prepared vegetables, industrialization, standards

Modern Food Engineering

Core equipment development and manufacturing technology

Automated and intelligent production is an inevitable trend in the development of modern food industry.

Developed countries have advanced food equipment technology, low energy consumption, good stability and reliability, and low food contamination. China’s food key equipment for a long time dependent on imports, manual operation, semi-mechanized operation in the food industry, a large number of uses, part of the processed food quality fission serious, backward food safety quality control, key equipment lagging behind, energy and water consumption and so on has become a key technological bottleneck restricting the development of the modern food industry, which is fundamentally backward in the core processing equipment.

Therefore, focusing on bottlenecks, the introduction of modern intelligent processing technologies, such as food precision 3D printing technology, molecular sensory technology and hyperspectral imaging technology, focusing on breakthroughs in the digital design of food equipment and the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing technology, real-time monitoring of the food processing process, the establishment of modernization of the manufacturing, automation and control, stabilization of the processing, safe production and energy-saving technology, research and development of food processing and packaging core equipment and integrated application, to enhance the core processing equipment. Packaging core equipment and integrated application, to enhance the level of food equipment in China, to support the good development of the food industry.

Keywords: food processing, quality, equipment

Key Technology of Food-Bio-based Material Preparation

Carbon neutrality and carbon peak is one of the key factors affecting China’s economic development in the next 20 years, and is also the biggest driving force for economic growth and transformational development.

The green manufacturing of food-source bio-based materials to help the development of green economy has become an inevitable trend, and is also the key to lead the global change in the great power game.

Promote the greening of food processing and packaging products, such as the use of bio-based materials to replace plastic products to effectively alleviate “white pollution”, plant-based materials to replace animal-based materials for the green processing of food, and effectively improve the nutritional conversion efficiency of food sources, to provide solutions for the global shortage of resources and environmental pressure.

China’s bio-based material industry started late, for example, the research on cultured meat is still in the primary stage of development, industrial microbial fermentation, biosynthesis and other technologies involved in the green manufacturing of food-based raw materials are still in the pre-industrialization stage of basic research, and there is still a lack of low-carbon development technologies for food functional components.

By accelerating the industrial application of synthetic biology in the food field and the development of “as-natural” food functional components, we can promote the green biomanufacturing in the food field in China and help to realize the dual-carbon goal.

Keywords: biobased, synthetic biology, green biomanufacturing

Formation of Hazardous Factors in Food Raw Materials,

Change and Control Technology

Food safety is an important reflection of national happiness index. In the process of food production, pesticides, veterinary drugs, environmental pollutants and other hazardous factors may enter the food to cause food contamination and bring about safety problems, and exogenous contamination may undergo a variety of changes in different processing of food.

Research on pesticides, veterinary drugs, biotoxins, heavy metals and other environmental pollutants in different food processing conditions of the degradation mechanism and migration and transformation of the law, the establishment of intelligent, portable, high throughput, high sensitivity, specificity and good multiple detection of hazardous factors in the food of the new methods and new means, analyze the hazardous factor residues and the toxicity of the product, the development of its safety control measures to reduce the risk of safety is currently a hot area of food safety research. Food safety research is a hot area.

Especially in our country, where environmental pollution is relatively serious and the use of agricultural inputs is not very standardized, the development of exogenous pollutant control and elimination technology is of great significance to fundamentally safeguard food safety.

Keywords: Hazardous factors, degradation mechanism, migration and transformation law, control technology

Food quality and safety early warning and traceability key technology

and Intelligent Cloud Platform Development

Due to the complexity of the source and acquisition of agricultural big data, there is no unified standard for the construction of food databases, food safety big data has sparse characteristics, and there are false correlations in food safety big data, which makes it difficult to reflect the value of its food safety big data application.

Developed countries such as the European Union, the United States, Japan and so on have formed a relatively systematic quality and safety traceability system, China is under construction and yet to be improved.

By combining cloud computing, Internet of Things, blockchain and other technologies with food quality and safety information collection, transmission and processing, establishing a big data cloud platform for social co-governance of food safety, establishing an early warning mechanism and traceability technology such as plastic particles and environmental estrogens in food, it is possible to realize the chip-based and informatization of the safety detection of the whole process of food production, such as the raising of agricultural products, breeding (production), processing, warehousing, logistics, channels, sales, etc. In addition, the clean production and pollution prevention system integration technology service adapted to the characteristics of different food industries can realize the risk warning and traceability of the environmental quality to the production quality and food safety of the food industry.

Keywords: food quality and safety, early warning technology, traceability technology, cloud platform development

High-value food raw materials and

Precise Nutritional Processing Key Technology

Aiming at the problems of low utilization of food raw materials, low value-added, and underutilization of a large number of high-value food raw materials and by-products in China, and in order to establish a healthy and nutritious dietary pattern suitable for Chinese people and satisfy the growing demand for high-quality nutritious and healthy food, and with the goal of precise nutrition, we should apply the new technology of modern food processing to realize the value-added utilization of food raw material resources in the gradient and the development of food raw materials. To fully integrate information technologies such as big data, cloud computing and Internet of Things, integrate genetic testing, metabolomics and microbiomics testing technologies, realize personalized genetic analysis, individual nutritional metabolism, and intestinal flora gene bank, and obtain a large health database to accurately match the nutritional and health needs of individuals, and systematically carry out the processing of high-value and accurate nutritional processing for animal source foods such as foodstuffs of cereals, oils, fruits, vegetables and dairy meat and eggs. We will systematically carry out research on key technologies and the efficient development and utilization of characteristic resources, so as to realize the high-value utilization of food raw materials oriented to personalized nutrition and health, and enhance the efficient transformation of resources.

Keywords: food raw materials, high value, precise nutrition