Future of Grain Science Series: Italy Today, the Italian food industry is focused on creating products using traditional processes and natural ingredients that meet both stringent government regulations and consumer expectations. To meet the needs of the future, food scientists must explore novel methods to ensure food safety; investigate ways to naturally improve grain traits related to agronomic and product performance and address sustainability issues; increase research into detection and quantitative estimation of peptides and proteins that impact consumers with allergies or sensitivities to gluten; and evaluate natural ingredients and optimized processing methods to nutritionally enrich cereal-based products. To succeed, new products must meet consumer expectations that their qualities and characteristics will be as close as possible to those of traditional counterparts. Improved dialogue among different scientific disciplines and enhanced synergies between different groups looking at the same problems using different approaches will be key in the success of these efforts. |