Billions of people around the world today will unknowingly perform a chemical reaction first reported 100 years ago. And the centennial of the Maillard reaction — which gives delightful flavour to foods ranging from grilled meat to baked bread to coffee but also has some nasty potentially carcinogenic side effects — is the topic of this fascinating article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

In the third of his series of ‘Top 10s’, Leatherhead FOOD RA’s Dr Wayne Morley, Head of Food Innovation, takes a look at ingredients, specifically the challenges that ingredients face when used in foods.

A recent survey by Leatherhead Food Research asked the food and beverage industry, presumably in the UK, what objectives are currently the most important when considering investment in new technology. Over 55% still considered that, despite big moves within the industry to improve sustainability and resource efficiency, the primary technology innovations needed remain focused on the product – either to deliver better quality or new products.

Tate & Lyle has developed and will soon launch a new stevia sweetener, branded Tasteva, and which it says does not have the bitter flavour associated with many stevia sweeteners on the market.

Such a big question could spawn many possible answers - but it's one that the Royal Society, the UK’s famed national academy of science, recently decided to answer. The most significant invention in the history of food and drink, it has announced, is the...

The growth in global demand for functional beverages is fuelled by several consumer trends. The number one trend, identified by IFT’s Food Technology magazine, is ‘real food nutrition’, whereby consumers are choosing to get more of their nutrients from the food and beverages they consume, rather than from supplements.

A new study confirms the satiating effect of Litesse polydextrose and its potential role in appetite control, reports DuPont Nutrition & Health.

A solution may be at hand for the number one consumer gripe about one of the world's favourite fruits ― bananas and their tendency to all-too-quickly ripen, soften and rot into an unappetising mush.