Biomimetic Texturing of Surfaces. Innovation for a Frugal Food Industry

The agri-food industry (IAA) in France is a major economic sector, representing some 10,000 companies with sales approaching 140 billion euros. It ranks directly behind the automotive industry (before the Covid-19 crisis). Its leading sub-sector is the meat industry, with 2,600 companies mainly located in the Bretagne-Normandie and Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne regions, with around 100,000 jobs and 33 billion euros in sales (source INSEE 2016), i.e. a quarter of all food processing industries. It covers all slaughtering, cutting and storage of meat and poultry products, as well as the industrial preparation of meat products (meatpacking). This specific industry is a major consumer of water, particularly for cleaning and sanitizing production tools and equipment (conveyor belts, cutting blades, etc.). In fact, the risk of bacterial contamination in the workshops is greater due to the greater number of often more complex operations required for the production of pre-packaged and/or minced meat. For example, according to the IFIP, a pork carcass consumes an average of 375 liters of water. There is even talk of the virtual water consumed (a global calculation, sometimes disputed and controversial) or water footprint of consumer products, with, for example, 15,000 liters of water per kilogram of beef.

It is now crucial, particularly with the various health crises that have occurred or are underway, to be able to control and monitor water management both quantitatively and qualitatively, not only for environmental and economic reasons, but also for food safety reasons, and thus reduce the risk of systemic incidents in this processing industry. Most of these companies are subject to European and/or French obligations and regulations, with ISO-certified environmental procedures. However, this also involves optimizing processes. When it comes to cleaning, the usual strategy for reducing water consumption is often dry pre-cleaning (de-scaling of solid waste), and the use of small rinses with medium-pressure jets rather than large high-pressure rinses. It also involves reducing the quantity of cleaning product diluted in water, in order to limit effluent and the treatment of its discharge. Changes in processing methods and in the tools themselves are also possible in order to save water. Certain stages can be rearranged to avoid washing and/or cooling. But it's also a question of preventing and limiting, if not eliminating, fouling, biofouling and the installation of bacterial biofilms on tool and equipment surfaces, which have an impact on food safety and the shelf life of processed products, and can even generate corrosion (micro-organism-induced corrosion, MIC), thus compromising the durability of production tools and equipment. Stainless steels have been widely used in the food industry since the 1930s....