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The benefits of quality food science information to Southeast Asia

By Dr. J. D. Selman, International Food Information Service

Food trade and food product development in Southeast Asia continues to grow and diversify. A good agricultural sector provides one corner stone, and further value is being added to food commodities through processing and the production of value- added foods and drinks. Such progress demands knowledge and skills in many areas of science, engineering, economics and marketing amongst others. In all cases the need for information underpins the activities of people working within the agri-food industry, academia, and governments. In this food community such activities include:

	Manufacturers (technical) : interested in up to date processing methods and technologies, suppliers of ingredients and technical equipment;
	Manufacturers (marketing and business) : looking for market sectors, competitors' products, mergers, takeovers;
	Manufacturers (research and development) : wanting detailed scientific information and data; needing reliable practical information on food composition, labelling regulations and food intake rates, and diets as well as information about legislation and consumer/market trends;
	Policy Makers : needing summaries of the crucial issues so that they can decide policy, devise regulations and advise the public;
	Educators, trainers, academic staff, food scientists : wanting detailed scientific information and data, contacts with people working in the same field as well as to identify successful, cost effective ways and training methods to impart information to their pupils and students.

600,000 abstracts from 1,800 journals

The International Food Information Service (IFIS) was set up in 1968 to meet the needs of a growing food community. This was achieved primarily through the production of the Food Science & Technology Abstracts^TM (FSTA^TM) database, first published in 1969. Since then, over 600,000 abstracts have been produced covering three main subject areas: the basic food sciences (including general food science, chemistry, physics, biotechnology, hygiene and toxicology, economics, process engineering and packaging); prepared foods and catering; and ten food and drink commodity fields. Information is sourced from 1,800 journals, plus books, patents, conference proceedings, reports, theses, standards and legislation. These sources are published in over 40 languages by authors from 90 countries (figure 1).

Figure 1

Records are produced by specialist scientists who tailor information from the whole food chain to fulfil the unique needs of the food community. So even though an author abstract of an article in a pure science journal may make no reference to the food content or food relevance in the paper, an IFIS abstractor will prepare an abstract that does focus on these relevant points, and then keyword and index it appropriately.

The Food Manufacturing Cycle (figure 2) shows the main elements of the food chain, including those agricultural issues relevant to food. Therefore whether you are in manufacturing, research, training or education, and concerned with one or more of these areas, information is of prime importance.

Figure 2

In all cases the ability to search in detail, and on a scientific as well as practical basis, requires a high quality thesaurus. This comprises a word list organised in a specific hierarchy to show relationships between terms and identify synonyms. This can permit horizontal fundamental scientific thinking - for example, emulsion technology is relevant to chocolate, drinks, mayonnaise, and cream. Extrusion is a mixing operation involving shear, pressure, temperature, and heat exchange. Such a process can therefore be applied to the development of a wide variety of product developments from cereal snacks to ice cream. Products themselves may be referred to in a more fundamental way. So reference may be made to 'dough coated meat' instead of 'pork pies' or 'ravioli'.

The food chain continues to become more global

The 11^th World Congress of Food Science and Technology was organised in 2001 by the Korean Society of Food Science and Technology and called Paradigm Shift - Harmonisation of Eastern and Western Food Systems . Whilst a diverse range of topics were covered during the five day programme, a key point was the fact that the food chain continues to become more global in terms of both technology and trade.

For those specifically involved with food research and development, there is a need for industry and academia to work closely together. Academia needs to know what industry requirements are so that projects and research training can be directed, at the same time, to helping industry. Similarly, industry needs to know where key areas of expertise and knowledge exist, so that it can make use of this in furthering commercial competitiveness through new product development where appropriate.

Those working in these fields therefore need, more than ever, to make use of the growing body of information, not least to improve efficiency by not reinventing the wheel. This requires an understanding of where to look for appropriate sources of information, and how to search the available databases. Companies in particular, need to invest in information resources and training for their staff.

Malaysia researches palm kernel oil

A snapshot from the FSTA database during the first five months of 2002 gives an idea of the research trends across Southeast Asia. In Malaysia there is considerable emphasis on the study of oils, especially palm kernel oil, in terms of oxidative stability and other properties, and the methods for analysing oil composition. In the Philippines the emphasis is on rice, and aspects of food safety. In Singapore there is more emphasis towards the study of certain enzymes, and also various dehydration studies. In South Korea, publication trends include several studies on molecular biology in terms of characterising cDNAs encoding particular enzymes in various foodstuffs.

Perhaps the greatest variety of research topics has been published from Thailand during this period. FSTA abstracts report studies such as:

	Quality standard implementation in the Thai seafood processing industry;
	Phytate, zinc and calcium contents of mungbean products commonly consumed in Thailand;
	Termitomyces mushrooms: a tropical delicacy;
	Nutrition actions in Thailand - a country report;
	Dietary exposure of Thais to pesticides during 1989-1996;
	Porcine plasma proteins as gel enhancer in bigeye snapper (Priacanthus tayenus ) surimi
	The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) generic model for the production of Thai fermented pork sausage (nham);
	The utilisation of vegetable oil that contains pigments from carrot and red tomato in chiffon cake products;
	Quantitative chromosome map of a representative indica rice;
	Effect of drying air temperature and grain temperature of different types of dryer and operation on rice quality;
	Studies of flavour encapsulation by agents produced from modified sago and tapioca starches.

Although such a snapshot is not necessarily indicative of current research programmes or of research funding strategies, it does highlight some interesting differences between the research work going on in different countries.

Currently FSTA is available on Datastar, Dialog, Dimdi, EINS, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), Ovid (both Silverplatter and Ovid platforms), STN and Questel.Orbit. IFIS also produces the print abstracts journal, and a datafeed of the database for selected organisations with their own search engine. The availability of FSTA through KISTI provides access to much of the South Korean food community. There is also an FSTA helpdesk in Tokyo.

New Web version of FSTA

In November this year, together with a new web site FoodScienceCentral.com, IFIS will also be launching FSTA Direct from IFIS with associated FSTA Aler ts. This web version of the database will offer a powerful easy to use search interface for both the novice and experienced user; flexible payment options including annual subscription or pre-paid credit; access to a weekly alerting service of the latest changes relevant to your saved search interests; direct links from the abstract to the original literature online (where available) or via document delivery; enhanced functionality of a single record view of each abstract with links to related FSTA records from the same author or journal or to records with the same keywords; access to a new integrated online dictionary and the FSTA Thesaurus; and flexible download options for printing or for compatibility with records management software packages.

IFIS intends to exhibit on 6-8^th November this year at the Food Ingredients Asia Expo in Bangkok and we would be pleased to offer guidance to anyone in the food community regarding food information issues. If you prefer, please contact us directly: Polly Catchpole (Head of Marketing & Sales), IFIS Publishing, Lane End House, Shinfield Road, Shinfield, Reading, UK, RG2 9BB.Email: ifis@ifis.org, or visit here .