The focus of the Plant Products and Food Quality programme is to elucidate the chemical, biochemical and genetic bases of quality and bioactivity in plant-derived foods and products.

It aims to enhance the health benefits of foods to the public by improving the nutritional and organoleptic properties of both raw and processed products and to establish diversification of the non-food crops sector via bioactive plant product research.

This combines the skills of natural product chemists, molecular biologists and the genetic/breeding skills in SCRI’s Genetics programme. Metabolomics and transcriptomics technologies  continue to provide an increasingly important technology platform within the programme, recently assisted by significant grant income from EU Framework VI and other national sources.

As part of a rolling commitment to maintain a high level of scientific quality and relevance we have reviewed the programme’s research emphasis and to enshrine this have recently changed the programme name from Quality, Health and Nutrition to Plant Products and Food Quality.

Improving the quality and nutritional value of food remains a major area of work; for example transgenic potato plants have been generated in which the tuber carotenoid content has been enhanced up to seven-fold.

In addition, managed sustainability of renewable resources is now a major focus in all aspects of agriculture and, along with a necessity to diversify the national economy base, significant opportunities exist with respect to the development of plant products in the widest sense.

As part of this the achievement of national sustainable development and growth must be accompanied by agricultural (crop) diversification and rural development and this can be achieved by research in the non-food sector that is the development of plant products. To achieve these aims the programmes is divided into two sub-programmes.

Food Quality

Food quality is a multi-faceted parameter and is generally the predominant driver behind economics of the food industry. Within the Plant Products and Food Quality programme the research foci are the major components making up food quality: taste, texture, nutritional value and safety. Read more on the Food Quality pages.

Plant Products

There is an increasing impetus to ensure that the resources we use for both food and non-food uses are managed in a sustainable manner. The utilisation of crops for applications other than simple nutrition is increasingly being seen as the way forward with respect to a sustainable economy. The Plant Products sub-programme will focus on the non-food aspects of crops and plants such as bioactivity. Read more on the Plant Products pages.

Lipids Unit

Mylnefield Lipid Analysis undertakes commercial analysis of lipids and lipid containing materials on a commercial basis. We analyse seed oils, fish oils and other lipid containing materials such as poultry, milk, eggs and yogurt. There is more information on the Mylnefield Lipid Analysis website.