Challenges and Opportunities in Wheat Flour, Pasta, Bread, and Bakery Product Production Chains: A Systematic Review of Innovations and Improvement Strategies to Increase Sustainability, Productivity, and Product Quality

Abstract

Pasta, bread, and bakery products are considered worldwide as essential foods for human nutrition. In particular, ancient wheats and whole wheat flours, despite being able to provide health benefits via bioactive compounds, present significant technological problems related to poorer dough rheological properties and final product characteristics. Moreover, both the food industry and consumers are increasingly sensitive to environmental impacts, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable innovations and improvement strategies, from cradle to grave, for the entire production chains, thus motivating this review. The aim of this review is to provide technological innovations and improvement strategies to increase the sustainability, productivity, and quality of flours, pasta, bread, and bakery products. This review is focused on the main operations of the production chains (i.e., wheat cultivation, wheat milling, dough processing, and, finally, the manufacturing of pasta, bread, and bakery products). To achieve this goal, the use of life-cycle assessment (LCA) analysis proved to be an effective tool that can be used, from early stages, for the development of eco-friendly improvement strategies. The correct management of the wheat cultivation stage was found to be essential since it represents the most impacting phase for the environment. Successively, particular attention needs to be paid to the milling process, the kneading phase, to breadmaking, and, finally, to the manufacturing of pasta. In this review, several specifically developed solutions for these essential phases were suggested. In conclusion, despite further investigations being necessary, this review provided several innovations and improvement strategies, using an approach “from cradle to grave”, able to increase the sustainability, productivity, and final quality of flour, semolina, pasta, bread, and bakery products.

Evaluation of Fourteen Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Genotypes by Observing Gas Exchange Parameters, Relative Water and Chlorophyll Content, and Yield Attributes under Drought Stress

“…In changing climate scenarios, wheat production decreases because of acute water deficiency in wheat-producing areas [5]. Drought affects the wheat yield throughout the growing season to some extent, but more yield losses occur during reproductive and grain-filling phases [6]. The yield losses of wheat during the reproductive phase due to drought might be due to its deleterious effects on morphological and physiological traits.…”

“…Drought causes grain loss because of pollen sterility and abscisic acid accumulation in spikes of drought susceptible wheat genotypes [17]. Last but not least, drought stress could significantly affect wheat kernels milling [18], flour quality [19], dough kneading [20,21], and the entire breadmaking process [6]. Being a major cereal crop in Pakistan, the wheat yield must be improved to fulfill the growing population's increasing food demands [22].…”

Selected Aspects and Determinants of the Slovak Agro-Food Companies' Innovativeness

“…The issue of innovation in the agro-food sector is very broad and involves the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. The potential for innovation is now seen as an essential part of the contemporary life (Cappelli and Cini, 2021). Innovation potential can be characterized as a new state of play, accompanied by many changes, challenges and opportunities (Cappelli et al, 2020b).…”

“…On the one hand, the agro-food sector is usually understood as one of the most important sectors in the European context, and as a sector characterized by strong competition between firms, on the other hand, it is a sector with low levels of R&D intensity (Hirsch and Gschwandtner, 2013;Zouaghi and Sánchez, 2016). Therefore, innovations which respond to customer demands and sustainability challenges seem to be the important tool for increasing the competitiveness of agro-food companies and for improving the profitability of innovations (Vanhonacker et al, 2013;Cappelli and Cini, 2021). Consumer awareness toward innovative marketing strategies, methods for ensuring food safety and quality, implementation of environmental friendly technologies etc.…”

Study of properties of wheat germins and meals and their use in the production of dietary hardtacks

“…In terms of tocopherol content (12...33 mg %), wheat germ exceeds most food products. 12 vitamins have been identified, in particular, tocopherols, thiamine, provitamin A (carotene), niacin (PP), riboflavin (B2), ergocalciferol (D2), pyridoxine (B6), pantothenic acid (B3), folic acid [1][2][3].…”