Hot issues of the meat industry at the congress at Expocentre

The overall high tone of the discussion was set by the report of the Deputy DIRECTOR for Scientific Work of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “FSC Food Systems named after. V.M. Gorbatov" RAS, professor, DOCTOR of technical sciences  Anastasia Semyonova,  dedicated to modern problems of development of the MEAT industry.

The speaker drew the attention of conference participants to the big changes taking place in the world. Population growth inevitably entails an increase in demand for food . By 2050, it may increase, according to various estimates, by 56-62%. Accordingly, the amount of agricultural land per person will change.

“Scientists,” noted Anastasia Semyonova, “when discussing these problems, generally look to the future positively. First, the food industry is expected to evolve. A transition to the production of products with increased nutritional value is predicted, while simultaneously preserving biodiversity, reducing resource consumption and reducing environmental impact.”

Interestingly, today the meat industry really shows great potential for reducing its environmental impact. Livestock breeders have proven that the choice of feed determines the volume of CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases. You can feed animals in such a way that there will be virtually no emissions.

Another important aspect of looking ahead positively is upgrading processing technologies to handle food more intelligently through innovative strategies and equipment designs.

Anastasia Semyonova specifically focused on the topic of the fourth industrial revolution in relation to the food industry. According to her, a striking example of Industry 4.0 was the recently built enterprise of the Cherkizovo Group of Companies in Kashira.

“In terms of the global challenges that exist today,” stated the representative of the industry science, “the meat industry also has four global current problems. This is, firstly, ensuring the safety of meat products. Secondly, it is ensuring quality control of meat products. The third problem is related to ensuring the competitiveness of meat products in the food market. And the fourth problem is progress in the production of alternative food products designed to compete with animal products. By the way, there are expert opinions regarding meat that in the near future alternative products should occupy more than 20% of the market volume.”

Anastasia Semyonova dwelled in detail on each of the problems that domestic meat industry enterprises have to face and introduced a number of speakers to the conference participants who HEAD certain areas of research at the Federal Scientific Center for Food Systems named after. V.M. Gorbatova.

The speeches of the heads and researchers of the institute’s laboratories touched upon the topics of microbiological control of food products, methods for identifying residual quantities of undeclared ingredients, innovative approaches to the production of meat products for children, new trends in products for the “warm shelf”, comparative qualities of products from different types of meat and poultry , as well as much more, which aroused the keenest interest of the professional audience of participants and visitors to the international exhibition “Agroprodmash-2023”.