Development of High Throughput Approaches to Optimise the Nutritional Value of Crops and Crop-Based Foods

Consumers, policy makers and the commercial sector have become highly tuned to the need for a more balanced and nutritional diet. Plant metabolites (small natural compounds), particularly those present in grains, fruit and vegetables play a key role in human health and wellbeing, therefore the improvement of nutritional composition in breeding programmes and the optimisation of nutrients in prepared and processed foods have become important targets.

However the journey from the farm gate to the dinner plate is often accompanied by large reductions in the level of the natural compounds that we know are beneficial to health leading to chemicals having to be added back into the food to supplement these losses.

As part of this project we will look at the natural variation in the health beneficial compounds and (micro)nutrients in three main staple food crops; potato, wheat and tomato. The project will follow them through many post harvest processing and transportation chains to establish to what extent and where the nutrients are being lost.

This approach will be underpinned by a variety of chemical analytical technologies which range from the everyday through the state-of-the-art to the emergent and novel technologies. These will be used to analyse the crops in their raw form and throughout their progression to foodstuffs such as mashed potato, bread, biscuits, pasta, and canned and salad-bagged tomatoes.