Evolutionary Algorithms for Food Science and Technology

1Introduction

1.1. Evolutionary computation in food science and technology

Food is a major factor for health and public well-being. It is one of the most important sectors of industry and deals with chemicals, agriculture, animal feed, food processing, trade, retail and consumer sectors. Providing an adequate food supply to a growing world population is one of the greatest challenges our global society has to address. Enterprises need to continuously provide safe, tasty, healthy, affordable and sustainable food in sufficient volumes. This requires adapt on to a range of factors, such as the increase in human population and health requirements, and the reduction in crops and livestock due to environmental factors and changes in the sociopolitical scene [VAN 14]. Besides, there is a need for an integrated vision looking at these factors from multiple scales and perspectives:

• – from the emotion and pleasure generated when eating food to the nanostructures of a food emulsion or food microbial ecosystems;
• – from regional organization to nutritional and sociological impact;
• – from health considerations to intercrop culture and microbial complexities, within the human body and in relation to food microbial ecosystems.

Under these conditions, creativity, pragmatism and robust optimization methods are crucial for reaching breakthrough innovations and sustainable solutions. There is a huge opportunity for evolutionary computation, in particular for developing efficient integrative ...