Category: Seminar

Of course, to perform these various tasks, food engineers are not alone. There are various aspects that food engineers must understand. Starting from food commodities where food engineers will work closely with agricultural engineers and post-harvest engineering engineers.
Then food engineers must also understand food additives and food ingredients to produce safe and good food products, which can then be distributed to the consumers in the market.

Currently, of course, there are still some problems in the food sector in Indonesia. First, the use of Indonesian food raw materials for food components or ingredients is still limited. In addition, Indonesian process engineers are still limited in designing food production process technology to process local Indonesian food raw materials in a sustainable manner.

Therefore, food engineers from the Food Engineering study program have various tasks and roles for the future of Indonesian food. First, Indonesian food engineers must be able to create new technologies to exploit the potential of Indonesia’s food resources. This is certainly something that must be realized immediately because Indonesia has a lot of potential food resources that are rich in nutritional content that can be commercialized and also developed to help the economy, prosper the community, and advance the Indonesian state.

Second, the quality of the food produced must be very carefully considered and also maintained very well because food ingredients are sensitive materials and are in direct contact with humans completely. “Food products must be maintained for their continuity, quality, and capacity so that they can be accepted by the industry,” said Dianika.

Healthy and delicious food should be the goal of assembling future food processing technology. The production of healthy food on a commercial industrial scale will make it more affordable for the wider community.

On the other hand, engineers from Food Engineering and ITB in general have also contributed to producing various future food processing technologies for Indonesia. The results created are Closed Circulated Batch Reactor and Closed Circulated Semi-Continuous Reactor. Both of these reactors have various advantages. Starting from more efficient water consumption, better hygiene control, and a larger load of materials to be processed.

The second problem that food engineers must also solve is food waste, which is now a big problem all over the world. On a national scale, the estimated total food loss or food waste in Indonesia is 18 to 31 million tons per year. Of course, this is an urgent condition for improvement. The solution currently being developed by food engineers is technology for processing dried fruit and further processing food waste into materials that can be used for other things.

“Not only that, food engineers must also be able to improve the existing technology to become more efficient and resource-efficient technology,” explained Dianika.

In addition, Dianika continued, food engineers must also adapt and be able to keep up with the times, especially in Industry 4.0 which is rife with industrial automation, especially in the food processing, food packaging, and food servicing sectors, which are now mostly run by machines and technology.

Reporter : Yoel Enrico Meiliano (Food Engineering, 2020)

The first research conducted was a calcium soap animal feed supplement. The purpose of this study is to reduce imports of Indonesian milk by increasing the productivity and quality of local cow’s milk. Calcium soap or often known as calcium fat, is obtained from the reaction of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) with lime. PFAD is a by-product of the Crude Palm Oil refining process which is very abundant in Indonesia.

This supplement can significantly increase the productivity of dairy cows’ milk, including its quality. The test results show that the quality of the calcium soap produced is slightly superior to similar products on the foreign market. This research has been stated in the form of 3 patents.

Next is the study of fermented cassava flour (fercaf). This research succeeded in developing fercaf which functions as food diversification or as a substitute for imported wheat flour. The results of this research have obtained a patent and were applied by PT Cassava Industri Estat Tujuh Sembilan in 2017 who produces fercaf on a commercial scale.

Several other studies have also been successfully carried out. Processing whey for nutritious drinks, for example. Whey which is a cheese factory waste still contains about 6 grams of protein/liter so it can be processed to produce nutritious drinks. “Coconut water processing for ready-to-drink drinks uses membrane technology. As well as processing stevia leaves as a source of low-calorie natural sugar,” he said.

In addition to the research previously mentioned, adaptation of new technologies (novel processes) for food processing was also carried out. Pulse Electric Field for preservation of avocado paste and ginger paste. Because as is known, avocado is a fruit that is not heat-resistant so that thermal preservation cannot be done. There is also an edible coating that can be used to extend the shelf life of the fruit.

Prof. Lienda conveyed several messages about the potential of the food industry in the future. “There will still be a variety of new technologies that require refinement through various studies. The success of research in universities cannot go alone. Synergy from all stakeholders is needed in preparation for Indonesia to compete and face global challenges in the food industry in the future,” said Prof. Lienda.

Reporter : Anastasia Meliana (Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, 2019)