Life cycle assessment of organic Parmesan Cheese considering the whole dairy supply chain

Agriculture and food manufacturing have a considerable effect on the environment emissions: holdings and farms play an important role about greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption. This study aims at evaluating the environmental impact of one of the most important Italian DOP product: organic Parmesan Cheese. Environmental performances of the whole dairy supply chain have been assessed according to the life cycle assessment approach (LCA). In this analysis Parmesan Cheese is made from an organic dairy farm in Emilia Romagna, which uses the milk from three different organic livestock productions. Organic agriculture is different from conventional; the major difference is represented by the avoidance of the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides made in chemical industry process. Organic agriculture uses organic fertilizers to encourage the natural fertility of the soil respecting the environment and the agro-system. In this case, life cycle approach is used to assess the carbon footprint and the water footprint of organic Parmesan Cheese considering the milk and cheese production. The object at this level is investigating the environmental impact considering the situation before some improvement changes. The functional unit is represented by 1 kg of organic Parmesan Cheese; inventory data refer to the situation in year 2017 and system boundaries consider the inputs related to the cattle and dairy farm until the ripening (included). The carbon footprint is investigated using IPCC 2013 Global Warming Potential (GWP) 100a method, developed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and reported in kg of CO2eq. Otherwise, water footprint allows to measure the water consumption and in this work it is assessed using AWARE method (Available Water REmaining).

Modelling the growth kinetic of spoilage microorganisms in a packaged cow’s ricotta processed with high pressure

Today consumers demand fresh foods without additives, preservatives and health risks: that is why non-thermal food preservation methods are receiving more interest, among them High Pressure Processing is able to avoid thermal degradation of food components, extend their shelf life and preserve colour, flavour and nutritional value. HPP is often used on dairy products because of its impact on physicochemical and sensory characteristics, its ability to improve their structure and texture and inactivate some microorganisms. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effect of HPP on a packaged ricotta rich in Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) and Omega-3, resulting from cows fed with linseed in the Parmigiano Reggiano area, and processed with a hydrostatic pressure of 600 MPa for 5 minutes. The ultimate goal is to find a mathematical model able to show the treatment’s effect on spoilage microorganisms that grow spontaneously in this product during a month of refrigerated storage.

Impact of RFID-TTI technologies on the efficiency of perishable products logistics

"The paper concerns the logistics activities related to perishable products. Perishable products are delivered from the production site to a warehouse by refrigerated truck. Perishable products are accepted or not at the warehouse entrance, according to their detected quality levels; if accepted, they are stored in the warehouse in suitable environmental conditions. Finally, they are delivered by refrigerated truck to the destination. Human errors affect these activities. Perishable products have to be delivered in a suitable quality level to the destination. Because of human errors, sometime products arrive in an unsuitable quality level and therefore, there is a loss for the company. RFID technologies, integrated with time temperature indicators (TTI), allow a prompt detection of abnormal quality loss and the prompt actuation of mitigation actions. In order to evaluate the benefits of different RFID-TTI implementation set-ups, the study defines a methodology that measures the risk of monetary losses. The method is applied to a case study and the results are presented."

A testing procedure of a digital application for safety improvement in a beverage plant

"Safety at the workplace is one of the most relevant issues for companies, due to the high number of accidents happening every year, some of which even deadly. Despite that, this number is decreasing thanks to continuous research and to an increasing application of safety procedures and devices. In line with that, the project presented in this work intends to develop and evaluate a new solution to improve operators’ safety, at a reasonable cost (including adoption and use). The usage of wearable systems (smart-glasses and smartwatches) will improve the efficacy of the solutions previously tested on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. Although no new devices were developed, the project required the creation of a new software tool, in which a great amount of information was inserted to allow its correct functioning. The main aim of this work is to create a testing procedure to evaluate the impact of this solutions on the employee’s safety. This is extremely important to demonstrate the efficacy of new industry 4.0 applications."