Professor Remko Boom receives DKK50 million grant to transform plant-based food processing

Professor Remko Boom has been awarded a DKK50 million (approximately US$7.2 million) RECRUIT grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation to lead a major new research initiative at the Department of Food Science. The project, titled AI4NaturalFood, aims to dramatically improve the sustainability of plant-based food production by integrating mild processing methods with artificial intelligence.

Boom, a renowned figure in the field of food process engineering, joins the Department of Food Science from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, where he has spent the past 26 years researching plant-based foods and leading the Process Engineering group. His move marks a return to hands-on research and the formation of a new research group, Food Materials Engineering, which will work closely with colleagues from the Department of Computer Science.

“The RECRUIT grant gives me the opportunity to get back into research in a very direct way,” commented Boom. “It’s an adventure, both scientifically and personally, and I see real potential to make a meaningful difference in how we produce food.”

The AI4NaturalFood project will run over the next seven years and focuses on developing sustainable, functional food products using much milder processing methods than those currently used in the plant-based sector. Conventional production methods often involve breaking down raw materials, such as legumes and oilseeds, into purified ingredients before reassembling them into food products. This approach typically requires large amounts of water and energy and results in significant nutrient loss.

“Rather than the elaborate and costly process of breaking down raw materials and then rebuilding a product from the resulting refined ingredients, we’re going to use much simpler methods,” Boom explained. “We’ll create enriched fractions and use AI to predict how we can combine them into good foods. With these milder methods we can retain more of the nutrients and preserve some of the natural structure of the raw material.”

This shift to milder, less resource-intensive processes has clear environmental advantages. It also presents new challenges, particularly in terms of the complexity of the food systems involved. Traditional food science has often focused on reducing complexity to better understand food structure and function. Boom believes the time has come to reverse that approach.

“Food is fundamentally very complex,” he said. “A single piece of bread contains hundreds of interacting substances. There’s molecular structure, colloidal structure, microstructure, macrostructure – structure at every level. These structures determine the food’s properties. In food science, we have traditionally tried to simplify and isolate these variables. But now, with advances in AI, we can finally begin to embrace the complexity instead of avoiding it.”

By using machine learning and advanced modeling techniques, Boom’s team will attempt to capture and interpret these interactions to predict the behavior of food systems during processing. This could eventually allow researchers and manufacturers to determine the best combinations of crops, ingredients, and processing parameters before a product is ever made.

“Mild processing has a lot of variables – so many things interact with each other – and capturing all of this is difficult,” said Boom. “That’s why machine learning is such a focal point of the project. Ultimately, we may be able to predict how food products will turn out before production even begins. In the future, it could even help us decide which crops are most suitable for specific food applications.”

The new Food Materials Engineering group will serve as the central hub for this work. It will be closely integrated with data scientists from the Department of Computer Science to ensure a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach. Boom sees this collaboration as an important part of the project’s long-term impact, helping to bridge a traditional divide in research culture.

“Historically, food scientists and AI researchers have operated in separate worlds,” he said. “Food scientists focus on physical and experimental understanding, while AI researchers have often worked on logistical or mathematical problems. With this grant we’re bringing both disciplines together to work on the same challenge, and that’s where I think true innovation happens.”

While stepping down as chair of the Process Engineering group at Wageningen University, Boom will maintain a part-time role there, continuing to supervise several PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. This will allow him to remain connected to the university’s research ecosystem while building new ties in his role in Denmark.

“The group in Wageningen is very mature now, with several full, associate, and assistant professors leading their own exciting research,” he said. “But I’ve missed being directly involved in scientific content. This opportunity is a way to reconnect with the work I love.”

Boom also sees his new role as a chance to foster collaboration between institutions and research communities across Europe.

“It’s sort of my personal dream that we will get better at working together across borders to create a more sustainable food system,” he said. “We shouldn’t be operating as isolated universities, but as a network of researchers with a shared goal. That’s another great thing about this grant – it provides the means and the platform to connect deeply with other groups and move forward together.”