Many of today’s food products addressing specific nutritional, health and wellness needs of human and animal
consumers are often very complex structures. Consequently, it is of utmost importance in food engineering research
to develop a detailed understanding of the time-dependent transient changes in all of the structural aspects of food
matrices from raw material harvesting, to product processing, to the point of breakdown during shelf-life,
consumption and final digestion. Food structural understanding and control needs to be mastered on a broad range of
length scales including: the molecular, supra-molecular, micro- and macro-structural level. At the same time, the
mechanical, physical and chemical properties of the food need to be considered. Only in this manner can a tailormade
build-up and controlled breakdown of food products be achieved, and subsequently, can specific nutritional,
physical and sensorial properties be engineered. Reducing fat and sugar content in order to reduce the energy density
of food requires a particular micro- and macro-structural design in order to compensate for resultant sensorial
changes. Specific structures can improve the stability and bioavailability (ultimately bioefficacy) of bioactive
compounds and probiotics. Improving the nutritional profile of food by increasing the overall content of (plant)
proteins, dietary fibres or whole grains can be achieved by certain means of structuring. Specific health care products
exhibiting a particular rheological behaviour at very high protein content, for example, can only be realised by
targeted modification of their supra-molecular structure. Finally, food microstructures can be designed in such a way
that their modulated digestion behaviour triggers different physiological responses.