Jul 14, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
What does it take to turn food science into a force for global good? In this episode, Food Science for Relief and Development leaders Donna Rosa and Randol Rodriguez…
Donna RosaGuest
Randall RodriguezGuest
Mary Ellen KuhnHost
So FSRD has highlighted examples where food science has improved shelf life, nutrient density, safety, and cultural relevance of foods used in humanitarian settings.
What are some innovations or success stories that might illustrate the power of food science to improve food security in low resource environments? Donna, let's start with you on this one.
Um, I think it's important to remember that innovation in these contexts has, I think, more to do with the creative application of existing technology or materials that are tailored to low resource environments.
So it's not in, in my mind inventing this new thing- That's gonna work in, you know, developing country context.
The problem and the creativity is how do you modify that to work when there's isn't enough resources, there isn't electricity, there isn't, you know, y- it has to be low cost, you know, it has to be very small scale.
And, you know, you know, getting into, into some of our cases, there's ingenuity and genius in every single case that we write about because every single one of them is solving a problem.
And so some of these solutions are, to me, ingenious, and they're, they're, they're sometimes mind-blowing.
Um, and so we need to keep that in mind that, you know, innovation is, is something a little bit different here.
Um, one would be, um, utilization of small scale equipment to take the process from being something done by hand and something very tedious to scaling it up.
And we have a couple of examples, actually two that, um, that Randall worked on.
Um, one is called Bounty Field, and the other is, um, produced small s- small scale extruders where, you know, um, you know, equipment was, was made and designed to work on, on what we would consider very small scale, but to them-
Um, another equipment, um, innovation would be, um, a moisture meter that addresses mycotoxins.
It's something called GrainMate, and this was a modification of something that allowed th- this very important, uh, measurement to be made on small scale and done cheaply.
... um, t- that are locally, uh, uh, grown and, and consumed, but use them as biofortification.
So FSRD has highlighted examples where food science has improved shelf life, nutrient density, safety, and cultural relevance of foods used in humanitarian settings.
What are some innovations or success stories that might illustrate the power of food science to improve food security in low resource environments? Donna, let's start with you on this one.
Um, I think it's important to remember that innovation in these contexts has, I think, more to do with the creative application of existing technology or materials that are tailored to low resource environments.
So it's not in, in my mind inventing this new thing- That's gonna work in, you know, developing country context.
The problem and the creativity is how do you modify that to work when there's isn't enough resources, there isn't electricity, there isn't, you know, y- it has to be low cost, you know, it has to be very small scale.
And, you know, you know, getting into, into some of our cases, there's ingenuity and genius in every single case that we write about because every single one of them is solving a problem.
And so some of these solutions are, to me, ingenious, and they're, they're, they're sometimes mind-blowing.
Um, and so we need to keep that in mind that, you know, innovation is, is something a little bit different here.
Um, one would be, um, utilization of small scale equipment to take the process from being something done by hand and something very tedious to scaling it up.
And we have a couple of examples, actually two that, um, that Randall worked on.
Um, one is called Bounty Field, and the other is, um, produced small s- small scale extruders where, you know, um, you know, equipment was, was made and designed to work on, on what we would consider very small scale, but to them-
Um, another equipment, um, innovation would be, um, a moisture meter that addresses mycotoxins.
It's something called GrainMate, and this was a modification of something that allowed th- this very important, uh, measurement to be made on small scale and done cheaply.
... um, t- that are locally, uh, uh, grown and, and consumed, but use them as biofortification.
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