RESEARCH OF THE POTENTIAL OF THE FOOD PROCESSING SPHERE OF THE FOOD INDUSTRY

Abstract

The article analyzes the current state and main problems of the food processing industry. It was established that Ukraine has a powerful potential that will ensure food security not only for its own, but also for the world. studied. It is emphasized that the future environmental task for the agro-food industry is to meet the growing demand for both food and other products based on biological raw materials (including biofuels and bioenergy) under the natural constraints of the system (eg space, emissions, scarcity of water, energy, nutrients and minerals). It was noted that such an approach will not allow Ukraine to achieve sustainable growth in the industry. One of the potential solutions for the food sector is to explore the potential of raw materials that are currently hardly used in food production. Strategic directions for improving the food storage system in Ukraine have been determined, in particular: raw materials (no matter how perfect the post-harvest operations are, it is impossible to get a high return from low-quality raw materials); packaging stations and primary processing (due to the lack of proper packaging systems, significant volumes of raw materials are lost within a short period of time, which leads to product shortages for consumers, economic losses on the part of producers and environmental pollution: biomass decomposes, which leads to problems with sanitation and the formation of harmful gases, so farmers should be encouraged to create packing stations at hub points to increase sales of fresh produce); processing, which not only makes goods edible for a long period of time (sometimes for years), but also adds economic value to them and leads to a significant reduction in losses; fast transportation systems and containerization; processing of non-commercial raw materials and waste (by-products of fruit and vegetable processing can also be effectively used, for example, as animal feed).

Factors leading to post-harvest losses were investigated. External factors include: mechanical trauma, improper handling and unsuitable packaging during transportation, as well as parasitic diseases. Internal factors include physiological changes and unwanted fermentation.