Editorial: Food engineering technologies: Solutions to build sustainable and resilient food systems, and increase food and nutrition security

PURLIS, EMMANUEL; CEVOLI, CHIARA; JURY, VANESSA

Frontiers in Nutrition

Frontiers Media S.A.

Año: 2022 vol. 9

We are currently and we will continue to facing major global challenges concerning food and nutrition security. By 2050, food systems will need to supply safe, affordable and nutritious, socially and ethically accepted foods to ca. 10 billion people around the world, according to general estimations. Furthermore, this has to be done in a sustainable manner: we need to reduce and optimize the use of resources, e.g., food, energy, water, and land. In fact, many of the sustainability goals outlined by the United Nations are related to food systems.Current food systems are highly integrated/globalized and present low resiliency, i.e., they are very susceptible to both local and global stresses such as economic, political, and natural disruptions and disasters. This lack of resiliency has been highlighted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic since beginning of 2020. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic and adopted measures like lockdowns have triggered an increase of the number of people suffering food insecurity in developing countries, and a rise in food waste in developed countries. It is expected that similar stresses to food systems continue to appear in the (near) future, e.g., similar pandemics, economic shocks, and climate change effects at local and global scales. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to build resilient food systems to face future disruptions and reduce food and nutrition insecurity.