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The study aimed to investigate consumers’ views on criteria to be claimed for organic processed foods and information to be communicated.

An online survey was carried out among 439 adults living in Italy, users of processed organic food, to gather opinions on criteria that processing of organic food should meet and on the terms that best define “careful” processing. Next, a conjoint design was applied to examine the effects of five independent factors on consumers' ideal concept of “organic”; these were potential information on packaging, processing, additives and product quality, and the type of food product. Three products with different processing level were selected: an ultra-processed and multi-ingredient product (vegetable burger), a processed product preserved by canning (peas in glass jar) and a minimally processed product (bagged salad).

The findings highlight that consumers attach more importance to the organic food carrier than the informational messages. Information on the processing and packaging follows, with messages on quality and on additives seemingly of minor importance. Three clusters of respondents were identified: those driven primarily by the type of organic food (24.6%), those placing more emphasis on product processing (21.3%), and a third larger cluster (54.1%) who expressed almost equal importance to all the factors considered. As for the processing of organic products, “eco-friendly” was the best message.

This paper offers insights into what best outlines the ideal concept of “processed organic food” as seen by organic food consumers, to be communicated to better guide their purchasing decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand consumer's familiarity with fruit processing as well as how fruit production conditions (organic and conventional farming), processing conditions (homemade, artisanal and industrial) and the type of processing (e.g. applesauce, apple cider and apple sorbet) influence consumer perceptions of processed fruits.

An online survey questionnaire was applied to 1,000 people living in France. The people represented different genders, ages (18–60+) and sociodemographic categories. Participants were categorized based on their produce purchasing habits (conventional, local, organic, local-organic). The questionnaire contained multiple choice and five point Likert scale questions. Data were analyzed using non-parametric tests.

The authors found that participants saw year-round availability, fruit preservation and food waste reduction as processing advantages. Locally sourced products were preferred to organic products. The perceived disadvantages to processing were additive usage, nutrient loss and packaging. For consumers, these disadvantages drove highly differentiated perceptions of industrial versus artisanal/homemade apple products. Processing conditions appeared to matter far more than production conditions (organic vs. conventional). In general, consumers weren't familiar with processing operations, awareness was greater for consumers of local and/or organic produce than conventional consumers.

There must be a societal transition toward healthier diets, and food technologies. Informed consumers, might be better equipped to make healthy, informed choices if the consumers are given quality information about food production and processing at different levels.

Research has shown that consumers view fresh organic fruit positively, but only few studies have looked at perceptions of processed fruit products and their familiarity with processing operations. Results of this study demonstrate that consumers could make better choices if the consumers are given quality information about fruit production and processing.

Organic food processing must include organic principles to be authentic. This qualitative study aims to understand the processors' understanding of organic food processing quality.

This study is based on semi-structured expert interviews with eight employees of six purely or partly organic dairies from Germany and Switzerland. Interview themes are (1) quality of organic milk processing in general, (2) assessment of specific processing techniques, (3) product quality of organic milk and (4) flow of information between producer and consumer. The interviews have been audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed.

(1) Experts prefer minimal processing; some prefer artisanal processing, whilst others stress the advantages of mechanisation. (2) High temperature short time (HTST) pasteurisation and mechanical processing techniques are accepted; ultra-high-temperature (UHT) milk processing is partly rejected. (3) Traditional taste and valuable ingredients should be present in the final product. Natural variances are judged positively. (4) Consumers' low level of food technology literacy is challenging for communication.

The results cannot be generalised due to the qualitative study design. Further studies, e.g. qualitative case analyses and studies with a quantitative design, are necessary to deepen the results.

The paper shows which processing technologies experts consider suitable or unsuitable for organic milk. The paper also identifies opportunities to bridge the perceived gap between processors' and consumers' demands.

The study shows the challenges of processors in expressing the processors' understanding of process quality.

The food processing industry is growing with retail and catering supply chains. With the rising complexity of food products and the need to address food customization expectations, food processing systems are progressively shifting from production line to job-shops that are characterized by high flexibility and high complexity. A food job-shop system processes multiple items (i.e. raw ingredients, toppings, dressings) according to their working cycles in a typical resource and capacity constrained environment. Given the complexity of such systems, there are divergent goals of process cost optimization and of food quality and safety preservation. These goals deserve integration at both an operational and a strategic decisional perspective. The twofold purpose of this paper is to design a simulation model for food job-shop processing and to build understanding of the extant relationships between food flows and processing equipment through a real case study from the catering industry.

The authors designed a simulation tool enabling the analysis of food job-shop processing systems. A methodology based on discrete event simulation is developed to study the dynamics and behaviour of the processing systems according to an event-driven approach. The proposed conceptual model builds upon a comprehensive set of variables and key performance indicators (KPIs) that describe and measure the dynamics of the food job-shop according to a multi-disciplinary perspective.

This simulation identifies the job-shop bottlenecks and investigates the utilization of the working centres and product queuing through the system. This approach helps to characterize how costs are allocated in a flow-driven approach and identifies the trade-off between investments in equipment and operative costs.

The primary purpose of the proposed model relies on the definition of standard resources and operating patterns that can meet the behaviour of a wide variety of food processing equipment and tasks, thereby addressing the complexity of a food job-shop. The proposed methodology enables the integration of strategic and operative decisions between several company departments. The KPIs enable identification of the benchmark system, tracking the system performance via multi-scenario what-if simulations, and suggesting improvements through short-term (e.g. tasks scheduling, dispatching rules), mid-term (e.g. recipes review), or long-term (e.g. re-layout, working centres number) levers.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it aims to investigate how salt and sugar reduction in foods due to the pressure from the emerging food regulations will affect the physico-electrical properties (PEPs) of orange juice and tomatoes during a selected PEP-dependent thermal processing. Second, the authors are keen to understand how variations in salt and sugar ingredients will affect the time-temperature processing requirements.

PEPs of the samples (orange juice and tomatoes) were measured using the KD2 thermal analyser and RS conductivity metre. Both samples with varying salt and sugar levels were subjected to ohmic heating processing using a 10 kW ohmic heater. Dehydration rates and processing times for pasteurisation were obtained.

Electrical conductivity increases with added salt in tomato puree but decreases with added sugar in orange juice. Statistical evidence confirmed significant changes in heating rates and processing times of tomatoes and orange juice as their relevant salt and sugar levels change. Reduction in salt content in tomato puree led to increase in time and energy for the thermal processes. While reduction in added sugar in orange juice results led to reduction in processing time and energy requirement for the processing operation.

The study is limited to small change in salt and sugar variations in order to reflect recommended limits. There were therefore no significant changes in thermal conductivity for the range investigated. Also this study is focussed on two food products.

Current pressure on the need to reduce salt and sugar in foods necessitates research to increase food processing industry insight into the process and product impacts of such recipe changes, with particular regard to processing efficiency and product safety and quality.

This study represents an attempt to understand the impact of salt and sugar variations on properties and processing requirements of tomato puree and orange juice.

The purpose of this paper is to identify various risk drivers which affect a food processing supply chain and to create a map of how those risk drivers propagate risks through the supply chain and impact important performance measures.

This study involves experts from food processing companies to elucidate the contextual relationships among the risk drivers and between risk drivers and performance measures. This is used to quantify the relationships and to determine the indirect and overall relationships applying Fuzzy Interpretive Structural Modeling.

Three categories of risk drivers which Indian food processing companies need to pay maximum attention to minimize risks are identified. These are supplier dependency and contracting, supplier variability, visibility and traceability and manufacturing disruptions. Analysis shows that collaborating with suppliers and logistics service providers, developing mutually beneficial contracts with them while ensuring that adequate technology investments are made can significantly mitigate risks and consequently improve margins and lead to revenue growth.

This study has been carried out with experts from large food processing companies in India, and hence, the results cannot be generalized across other types of food processing companies.

The proposed methodology can help understand the interrelationships between supply chain risks and between those risks and performance measures. Thus, it can help a food processing company to create business cases for specific supply chain risk mitigation projects.

This study is one of the earliest to create a comprehensive risk propagation map for food processing companies which helps in quantifying the impact the risk drivers have on each other and on performance measures.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the effect of marketing modification on business performance from the perspective of marketing capabilities theory.

This study employed a survey method to collect data from 225 food processing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA) registered list in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The effect of marketing modification on the performance of SMEs in the food processing industry was evaluated using a structural equation modeling (SEM) – path analysis.

According to the study’s findings, marketing modification has a positive and significant impact on the financial performance (FP), customer performance (CP), internal business process performance (IBPP) and learning and growth performance (LGP) of Ghanaian SMEs engaged in food processing. The results of this study also demonstrated the importance of marketing modification determinants, such as marketing resources (MR), cross-functional and interenterprise collaboration (CFIEC), architectural marketing capability (AMC) and marketing strategy decision implementation (MSDI), in achieving food processing SME performance in Ghana.

This current research has its limitation, even though its importance has been mentioned earlier. First, the study can be improved by expanding the sample size through the inclusion of other SMEs from other industries since it is industry specific (i.e. food processing SME). Second, this current study was conducted in Ghana. To compare results, the current study may be replicated in other emerging countries. Third, future research studies may consider how business environmental factors such as technological change (e.g. use of artificial intelligence and machine learning) moderate the relationship between marketing modification and SME performance.

The outcomes of this research study are anticipated to give profitable implications to both academicians and practitioners. For the academic aspect, this study provides an important contribution to marketing modification and performance literature by examining the impact of innovative marketing on the performance of food processing SMEs in Ghana. For practitioners, this study indicates that food processing SME owners/managers must focus on marketing modification to develop their performance. The increase in marketing modification application through marketing capabilities such as MR and CFIEC will enable owners/managers to achieve performance targets.

The application of marketing modification among food processing SMEs in Ghana will contribute greatly to their profitability, survival and growth. The growth and survival of food processing SMEs (not limited to food processing SMEs) in Ghana will help in the control of unemployment, which is a major social issue in Ghana.

The study’s findings provide solid support for the marketing capabilities theory. This study also supports the notion that food processing SMEs should perceive marketing modification and its determinants (i.e. MR, CFIEC, AMC and MSDI) as a critical strategic capacity to enhance their performance (i.e. FP, CF, IBPP and LGP). In terms of contribution, this study adds to the body of knowledge already available on marketing modification and business performance, particularly in the setting of an emerging economy.

Global recession is a serious issue to both the developed and developing economies. Reports published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (2019–20) have revealed that the growth of gross domestic products (GDPs) has shrunk significantly in the last few quarters. Due to such recession productions by many, manufacturing industries have reduced significantly, and a large number of people have lost their work, and scope of new job creations has also decreased. Food sector has also been affected by global recession (Agbedeyi & Adigwe, 2018). Food Processing Industry (FPI) is India's one of the most sunshine manufacturing industries and ranks fifth among the Indian industries in terms of production, consumption, and exports. The country ranks second in global ranking in terms of producing food products next to China. Despite the global recession, the FPIs helped the Indian economy to maintain the growth of the GDP and have created new job opportunities. Around 70 lakh persons are employed in both registered and unregistered food processing units in India. The value of food exported in the year 2018–19 was US $35.30 billion which was 10.69% of India's total export (i.e. US$330.67 billion) (MoFPI report, 2018–19). In this backdrop, the present chapter will try to find out the role of FPI in the Indian economy and will also highlight the prospects of this industry in the coming years.

This study examines the performance of India's food processing sector by estimating its output growth, technical efficiency (TE) and input-driven growth (IDG)

This study used panel data from six food processing manufacturing industries for the period 2000–01 to 2017–18. Technical efficiency and input-driven growth was measured using the parametric half-normal stochastic frontier production function.

The findings of this study showed that the estimated average technical efficiency is 86.6%, which specifies that the Indian food processing sector is technically inefficient. In addition, the output growth rate is 5.5%, driven by high doses of inputs (5.7%), whereas there is no indication of constant returns to scale. However, the food processing sector has experienced more input-driven expansion than either technological or efficiency changes.

This study is limited to India's organized manufacturing food processing sector; the aggregate macro data at a three-digit level based on the national industrial classification (NIC) was used. This study provides robust estimates for industrialists and processors, as well as concrete policy formulations on how overdoses of inputs may lead to high exploitation of resources, whereas outputs can be augmented by implementing upgraded and new technologies.

Previous research has estimated the total factor productivity and technical efficiency only in order to analyze the food sector's performance, but none of the studies have evaluated the share of inputs in growth performance and efficiency. Therefore, this study contributes by measuring growth performance and the share of inputs in the growth performance of India's food processing sector.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) of integrated quality environmental management (IQEM) and analyze their impact on operational performance (OP) and environmental performance (EP) in food processing Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan.

The study is based on collecting data using a survey questionnaire through snowball sampling technique. A total of 302 food processing SMEs operating in Punjab, Pakistan, responded to the survey. SPSS version-23 and SmartPLS-3 were used for data analysis.

The literature review identified leadership (LS), employee management (EM), strategic planning (SP), information management (IM), process management (PM), supplier management (SM) and customer focus (CF) as CSFs of IQEM. The results of this study found a significant relationship of all identified CSFs with operational performance in food processing SMEs whereas EM, IM, PM and SM were insignificant with the EP in the food processing SMEs.

Although this study has collected data from one province, the Punjab province, it still relevant in identifying the CSFs for IQEM implementation within food processing SMEs to improve performance.

Despite the wide spread of integrated systems practices in the developed countries, little attention has been placed to implement and assess the IQEM initiatives by organizations in the developing countries. Thus, this study identified CSFs of IQEM based on empirical studies and analyzed their impact on OP and EP of food processing SMEs.