From jellyfish to pomegranates: Revolutionizing food processing in Georgia

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Emily Davenport: 0:01

Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity, where we get down and dirty with the experts on all the ways science and agriculture touch our lives from what we eat to how we live. I'm Emily Davenport.

Jordan Powers: 0:12

And I'm Jordan Powers, and we're from the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

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Jordan Powers: 0:21

While most episodes of Cultivating Curiosity are recorded in our Athens, Georgia studio, a lot of the amazing work that happens at CAES and UGA Extension occurs across the state. Today, we are at the UGA Griffin Campus, about 30 miles south of Atlanta, with Kevin Mis Solval, associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. Kevin, thanks for having us out to Griffin today.

Kevin Mis Solval: 0:44

Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity.

Jordan Powers: 0:46

Absolutely. We are really excited to dive into this conversation and, spoiler, I think Emily's extra excited on some of the topics we'll cover today.

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Jordan Powers: 0:55

Before we dive into his background, we got to peek into Kevin's lab in Griffin, where he had built an entire miniaturized version of a peach processing line, where peaches are washed and packed before distribution. This project is funded by the Georgia Department of Agriculture and is investigating ways to improve on the washing and packing process in order to minimize bacteria before the peaches make their way to suppliers nationwide.

Kevin Mis Solval: 1:19

So the equipment that we're looking directly at is our simulated packing, washing and packing equipment for peaches, turns out that there is an issue with cleaning some of the rollers that are in this type of equipment. So what we're trying to do is to explore better ways to clean these rollers using technologies that we are developing in my lab. And so with those designs, we are going to be able to clean and disinfect these commonly used rollers more effectively. And so the intention of building this pilot plant line is to mimic the conditions that you would see in real packing operations of fruits and vegetables. So as a process engineer, I like to build things, I like to study things, I like to understand how things work, and how do we make things better for the food industry in general?

Jordan Powers: 2:21

Absolutely. And some of that research is happening behind a computer. But some of it's happening by building a processing line.

Kevin Mis Solval: 2:26

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. That's how you understanding how you teach your students as well to understand the processes that you want to improve.

Jordan Powers: 2:33

We took some photos of the mini processing line that we'll share in the show notes. In the meantime, let's get back to the interview.

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Jordan Powers: 2:41

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in food science?

Kevin Mis Solval: 2:46

Born and raised in Guatemala, Central America. Growing up in a developing country, I was fascinated with some of the technologies that I saw during my especially high school years. I was fascinated with the way sugar cane is made. So Guatemala is one of the largest sugar cane producers in the world. So when I went to high school there, I had the opportunity to intern at the largest sugarcane mill in Guatemala, where I was fascinated about, you know, all these pieces of equipment, large pieces of equipment that were used to make sugarcane. And that's how I was really interested in learning more about food processing as an area study was I wanted to become a process engineer. The only way you could have done it back 20, 25 years ago in Guatemala was to become a chemical engineer. I didn't want to study chemical engineering per se. I wanted to study something more related closer to foods, to food processing. So it turns out that in Guatemala at the time there were not really any food science, food processing schools. So I was looking at a way to pursue a bachelor's degree in food, food science, food engineering outside Guatemala. So I had the opportunity to go to Honduras and study Food Science and Technology in Honduras, where I met incredible people from all over Latin America. So the place that I went was called Zamorano University. During those years, I learned about not only the different cultures about Latin America, from Latin America, from Mexico all over to Chile, and I had incredible mentors, incredible professors who had PhDs in food processing, any area of possible area in agriculture right away. So when I was a senior in Zamorano in Honduras, I had the opportunity to come to the Louisiana State University as an intern for four months. So I came in and I interned in Dr. Subramaniam Sathivel's lab. We conducted a project with transforming catfish oil into biodiesel. So it was really interesting, you know,

Emily Davenport: 4:54

Wow. that was a very interesting project and I was really fascinated by it. You know, when I was young and dumb, probably, And on top of that, we heard that just three weeks ago, you you know, wasn't really interested too much in science. By the way, I never ever thought about going to become a professor, you know, ever. All that I want to do, you know, get a college degree, back in Guatemala, of course, you know, get a college degree and get a job and maybe start a family and I probably didn't have like, big dreams. All that I wanted to do was, like, work hard, focus on my work one day at a time. So um, when I came to LSU for that internship, my major professor at the time offered me to return as a master's student. One of the limitations that I had at the time was that my English was not good. So I had to improve it a lot. So I wanted to come back to the United States and get a degree. My goal was to return one day to Latin America and work in Guatemala or any country in Central America, that's all that I wanted to do. Anyways, I came back to LSU for my master's in Food Science and Technology, which I completed in 2011. So then after that, again, my major professor asked me to stay for PhD program. But this time in Biological Engineering. I had to think about a little bit whether I wanted to pursue that because that was going to be like four more years of study. And so in a major that I wasn't completely familiar with, I had to take a lot of courses in engineering and do more challenging studies. But I was having a good time at LSU. And in school, and I had a lot of friends and we were doing great job, interesting research. And I decided to continue on that path. So you four years later, I completed my PhD in Biological Engineering. I didn't know what to do actually was more maybe inclined to join industry. But at the same time, I had something inside of me that I wanted to mentor young people. And I had extensively published a lot of scientific articles regarding process optimizations, food processing operations, developing a high value food ingredients. I talked to my major advisor, and he recommended me maybe to improve my teaching skills, because in grad school, I never had the opportunity to teach a complete course. So I took a teaching job at University of Holy Cross in New Orleans, Louisiana, where I taught food processing, physics, and advanced physics courses for undergrads. And I definitely loved that job. Definitely like it. You know, I enjoy working with young people. We were like experimenting, brainstorming all the time. And after two years, I felt that I wanted to include a research component in my career. So I was looking for positions in both academia and in industry. So academic jobs, especially faculty jobs, take a lot longer. The interview process, it's about a year or so. But industry, the hiring process is a lot faster. I got a job on nanotechnology company in Dayton, Ohio, where I was a process engineer and I was in charge of managing the spray drying operations for the company. We're doing a little nano sized products for energy storage applications. So it was a fascinating job, I mean, I definitely learned more about material science, I only worked with material scientist and material engineers. And it turns out that the technology that I was in charge of which by the way, is my area of expertise, spray drying, nobody in the material world knows too much about it. I mean, it's a technology that is widely known in food and pharmaceutical industries, but it's been introduced now to other fields, because, you know, its versatility and cost effectiveness. So I was in charge of a big group of engineers, were doing all kinds of products, production and research. And I really liked that job. Unfortunately, I wasn't working with foods. And most of the work that I was doing, I wasn't really doing too much work outside that particular technology, which in a way I enjoyed because it definitely allowed me to go a lot deeper in understanding that technology, and especially large scales, and we're doing a lot of production scales. So when my current position was advertised, I got a call from my major professor back from LSU, right? And he said, hey, Kevin, you should apply to this position, you're the perfect candidate for it. And I wasn't really convinced, because I know University of Georgia has a great, great reputation, especially in Food Science and Technology field. And I was like, there is no way I'm gonna get that job. But I'll do my best and I will interview, I will apply. You never know about these positions, right? So I remember it was February 2018. And a month later, the chair of Food Science and Technology actually called me, Dr. Rakesh Singh and offered me the position and I was definitely you know, surprised. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Fast forward, I joined the program in the fall of 2018. I've been here in the program on the Griffin Campus for five years now. I don't remember having a better time in my life than I'm having it today. It's a great opportunity. I'm so blessed. I'm so grateful to have this position. So that's how'd I get here, you know. said you received a promotion to associate professor, so congratulations. Thank you very much, appreciate it. What an exciting journey. And it's great to have people looking out for you to hook you up with a position like, well, at least put the position in your line of sight, to have your professor...

Kevin Mis Solval: 10:14

Sure. Yeah.

Jordan Powers: 10:15

That mentor sounds like a solid mentor.

Emily Davenport: 10:17

Yeah, yeah

Kevin Mis Solval: 10:19

It is. It is definitely,

Emily Davenport: 10:21

That's awesome. We know that you have an 80% research, 20% UGA Extension appointment. So what does the day to day look like for you?

Kevin Mis Solval: 10:29

Having a lot of research appointment requires me to spend a lot of time doing research. That means reading articles, brainstorming. Unfortunately, I don't work too much in the lab doing the experimental analysis and all of that. I did that during the first couple of years that I got here. But I spent that time to train my students, train my technicians, my senior scientist, so they can do it now for me. So they understand every time that I instruct them what I want them to do, they will do it. So now my day looks like more towards reading research articles, writing a lot. So I would say 90% of my day is writing. It's writing, reading and reading, understanding, what is the current research in food science? How does it look like? How do we implement the new knowledge into our research so we can expand the scientific knowledge in our field? So it takes a lot of time, takes a lot of effort, because what happens most of the time is I get easily distracted by many things, many ideas. We may have like 10 good ideas, excellent ideas, but then we had to make a choice about selecting the best one, not even the best two, the best one. So your chances of getting funded and published in the world are higher if you focus on maybe one or two ideas. So that's how my day looks like doing a lot of research. Mentoring students, which I enjoy a lot working with young people, sometimes they have a background in food processing, food science. Most of the time is very limited. So it's my job to actually train them. And that takes time, as well. It takes time, takes effort from both sides. And I'm very happy and glad to have had good grad students.

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Emily Davenport: 12:16

Kevin does a great job mentoring his students. His doctoral student, Peter Chiarelli, just received a pre-doctoral fellowship from USDA NIFA. For his research, we'll add a link to the story in the show notes for you to learn more. By the way, USDA NIFA is the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. They provide leadership and funding for programs that advance agriculture-related sciences. We'll link their website in the show notes too.

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Kevin Mis Solval: 12:46

Like I said, most of my time is dedicated to doing research and doing a lot of experimental work, planning and brainstorming and publishing that work. In my case, it doesn't really matter how much work we do in the lab unless we publish it right. So we'll publish it in top journals, because we want to improve the recognition of our department in the scientific field. So that's part of my job to make sure that the work that we do here is high quality, is impactful, and expands the current site scientific knowledge. By doing that I'm also dedicated to train students, like I said before, not only students, but also visiting scientists, technicians, and my whole team. I collaborate with other faculty members here in our program and also in other programs across the United States. And now I'm starting to collaborate with more people outside the US, like people from Thailand, researcher from Brazil, and I think that's the second phase now of my career here at UGA.

Jordan Powers: 13:44

Absolutely, keeping that impact right here on the Griffin Campus, but then also taking it across the globe, which is really exciting.

Emily Davenport: 13:51

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mis Solval: 13:51

Yes, yes, absolutely. I do have an Extension appointment as well. I teach some workshops, and also in our department like the better Process Control School, where I also work with food companies, train food personnel in the US and also overseas. For example, I went to my home country last year in a US aid-funded project and so I helped a local company in Guatemala developing food products that are actually being commercialized as we speak. It was a fascinating experience, and sometimes these companies back in developing countries don't have the resources or the knowledge to develop good foods that are healthy, nutritious, and of course safe. Those are like the three key areas that I like to address every time that I'm assisting or helping a food company developing a new product.

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Jordan Powers: 14:41

When Kevin references US aid, he's talking about USAID, which is the United States Agency for International Development. We'll add a link in the show notes for you.

Kevin Mis Solval: 14:54

More recently, again in my Extension work, I

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[chime] went to Uzbekistan to assist a company optimizing food processing operations. So the company is one of the largest exporters of fruits and vegetables in Uzbekistan. They had issues with process optimization. So when they're, you know, train some of their personnel to look after, how do we improve operations? What are the key areas of looking at fresh fruits and vegetables, how do, they can, you know, improve those operations by using some of the technologies I'm using here in United States. So that was a great, great experience. Again, that's another project with USAID funded program, I'm happy that my feedback has been recognized not only in the US, but now outside the United States.

Jordan Powers: 15:42

A lot of that impact, like you mentioned, you you share in those journal articles, which is something fantastic. And I know your faculty profile has quite a few of those listed. So we'll be sure to link that in the show notes if people really want to dive in and learn more about the research that you're completing.

Emily Davenport: 15:56

Mm-hmm.

Jordan Powers: 15:57

You mentioned your students and your grad students, what are some of the projects that they're currently working on? Or is there, are there some that you can share with us?

Kevin Mis Solval: 16:04

Well, we have a bunch of different projects. And that's one of the beauties of being in academic work, right? So we can develop our own ideas. But at the same time, we have had to diversify a lot. My research, which at some point, I'll try to cut some of the work that we're currently doing. But when I joined UGA, five years ago, we started working with a project with Georgia Grown pomegranate, most of these pomegranates are sold in the fresh market, right? So we saw an opportunity to develop high value for ingredients and see how we can help the industry to diversify a little bit and also understand how they can utilize byproducts meaning peels and seeds, we look at the antioxidants or their phytochemicals in pomegranates, and we were fascinated to find that pomegranate and pomegranate peels are incredible sources of antioxidants that may have some health benefits. One of the products that we conducted was to extract pectin from pomegranate peels and extract also the antioxidants from those peels and also from the juice and to encapsulate that and produce a powder product that could have both vaccines and antioxidants. That's a high value product. We conducted the feasibility studies. And most of this work is published in scientific journals. As part of this project as well, I collaborated with Dr. Jinru Chen, who was the main the main PI for the project. So she was looking at food safety aspects of these compounds. And it turns out that some of these compounds have strong antimicrobial properties. And what's fascinating, so you know, that's something that we didn't know before. That's how we started helping local growers in Georgia with this new project. So on another project that we're currently working on is with satsumas. Satsuma mandarins is an emerging crop here in Georgia. One of the challenges for the satsuma industry is that there is a lot of Satsuma trees that have been planted recently, and the harvesting window is very short. So most of that harvest is intended for fresh market. And it's expected that all that to satsuma mandarin production, it's going to saturate the market in the coming years. And now we're exploring alternatives to utilize the excess fruit or the second grade fruit. So we're looking at producing satsuma use powders used in spray drying. And we have found that satsuma use powders are a great, great source of vitamin C. The advantage of having those products is that those products are shelf stable, and also can be utilized in different food applications. But not only food applications, but also in cosmetics, in other applications where a natural ingredient is required. So we're excited about that. Because it's Georgia-grown, it's a natural product, and may have a lot of potential in the coming years. A lot of the work that we do in my lab is feasibility studies. One of the main questions is, can we make this? Can we make that? So we start with that question, right? I prefer focusing on

Georgia-grown commodities: 18:57

pomegranate and satsuma mandarins. And obviously, we have had some success, and especially with one of the commodities that very few people have heard of, which is jellyfish. And I've been so fortunate to have a lot of success on that project. But like I said before, and I think I'm gonna explain a little bit more about what we're doing with jellyfish. But a lot of the work that we do, again, is to do feasibility studies, and also how to identify economic opportunities for our growers here. So pros, things that they never thought of in, like, satsuma use powders, how they can make a profit producing those type of products. They already have the food, they already have the raw materials, but they may not have the knowledge of how to make, you know, to get through that process of developing these new products. At the University of Georgia Griffin campus, we have great resources. We also have the Food Product Innovation Center. I work with them a lot in developing and commercializing some of these ideas that we originally started in my lab.

Jordan Powers: 19:58

What, and we'll definitely talk about FoodPIC later, because that that could be a whole episode on its own. I'm just stuck on what an amazing opportunity both for your students to have the experience of checking the feasibility of products that they will eventually see, what an amazing opportunity for the producers who are finding a whole new revenue stream in their production. And then the end consumer who, at the end of the day, is benefiting from these products. I mean, it is impactful on so many different levels kind of throughout this process from that first question of "can we do this?" to seeing a vitamin C supplement on a shelf. That's that's pretty powerful.

Emily Davenport: 20:32

Yeah, I think it's really cool the creativity

Kevin Mis Solval: 20:33

Sure, yeah, wow that goes into thinking about, what else can we do with this

Emily Davenport: 20:36

And your success there? besides just consuming a raw fruit product or something like

Kevin Mis Solval: 20:43

I think that by far one of the most that. And I love the creativity of the jellyfish. And that is not something that we think of as a food item at all. So can you tell us more about your work with the jellyfish successful projects that we currently have in my program, well, I think we started working with jellyfish by a stroke of luck, I would say. Back at LSU. I worked a lot with seafood byproducts, and how to develop high value products from using or utilizing seafood byproducts. So I worked with catfish, catfish skin, catfish oil. I work with crawfish, crawfish byproduct. I work with shrimp, oysters. Louisiana has a rich history of seafood processing and seafood innovation. So when I came to the University of Georgia, and I joined the program, in the first month into the job I got a call from Tori Stivers, who is the seafood specialist for Georgia Sea Grant and Marine Extension. And she called me she said, hey, Kevin, I saw an email of your hiring and I saw that you graduated from LSU, and I know LSU has a strong seafood technology program. And by the way, are you familiar with jellyfish and any potential uses for a jellyfish? And I was like, what? Jellyfish?

Everyone: 22:07

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Kevin Mis Solval: 22:09

I never heard about jellyfish in my life, and can you explain a little bit more about that? So she was kind enough to meet me and turns out that at the time, the Georgia jellyfish industry was struggling. And I didn't know there was actually a Georgia jellyfish industry. So the Georgia jellyfish industry, turns out that, you know, they catch jellyfish spring, spring months of the year and salt it, dry it, and then export it to Asian countries. Now, that's a technology that is very, very old, salting, drying jellyfish, it's been used for centuries, and there is nothing new there. The challenge that the industry has, or had at the time, is that, you know, one of the main buyers of salted, dried jellyfishes was China. So China was imposing a lot of import taxes on these salted dried jellyfish from the United States. So they wanted to introduce jellyfish products into the local market, meaning United States, right? But the challenge is, how do we convince domestic consumers to eat salted, dried jellyfish? And so that's where I came in with ideas about commercializing, you know, jellyfish-based products. And I said, well, seems like jellyfish is a great commodity and has a great potential, and I told Tori Stivers to, you know, send me some samples, I'll look at it in my lab, explore what it has and what we can do. Sure enough, they were kind enough to send me samples of jellyfish, so we're looking at different aspects and nutritional profile, and we found that cannonball jellyfish or jelly balls are a great source of collagen.

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Emily Davenport: 23:54

The cannonball jellyfish is a harmless, dare we say cute? round jellyfish, that's also known as a jelly ball. The species is Stomolophus meleagris. We'll add a link in the show notes where you can learn more about these rotund jellies.

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Kevin Mis Solval: 24:11

When we discovered that, it was like an aha! moment for me. I'm like, wow, it is collagen. And I knew about the new collagen trends that are happening now in the market. And then I said, well, you know, these could be definitely a really cool raw material for making collagen-based products and they were a little bit skeptical. You know, there's some people, oh, we wanted to do you know, you probably just freeze jellyfish and have frozen jellyfish and sell them to the market. Although that's a great idea, the challenge with that is we still need to convince the domestic consumers to eat that jellyfish, to buy the jellyfish, right? So a lot of people are still skeptical about eating jellyfish. But we also found that when you provide a powder product to a consumer, that consumer is more willing to try that new product compared to if you give the whole piece of that commodity or that product to the consumer. That's how everything started. We started working on that project, discovered the collagen in jellyfish, applied for funding because that's another thing that I do. A lot of the work that we currently do, we need to find sponsors from the federal government or state government or industry to pay for that project because, you know, research is expensive. And so we had to, you know, apply for some funding and at the beginning it was really, really challenging because a lot of the people or the agencies who are skeptical about jellyfish, they don't think it's a thing here in Georgia, but Georgia has an advantage over other states because here in Georgia, jellyfish is a state fishery so meaning, you know, it's legal to harvest and it's legal to commercialize and process jellyfish. So we started working with this and you know, apply for funding, we're really blessed to receive funding from the United States Department of Agriculture through its NIFA program. That's where everything really started to exponentially grow, I would say. You know, we we had more resources to do research and understand more about jellyfish, collagen, and how we could create products that will have thickening properties. A lot of the collagen-based ingredients that you see in the food industry are used to provide thickness. That's not always the case. In some applications, thickness is not required. So we were like working on understanding at what points this collagen will provide thickness and what conditions this collagen will not provide thickness and so we are currently looking at ways to produce collagen peptides as well. I don't know if you've heard, you know, some of the collagen peptide supplements?

Jordan Powers: 26:39

I keep hearing it in headlines and in all the

Kevin Mis Solval: 26:40

Most of those collagen peptides supplements trending articles. Yeah.

Emily Davenport: 26:43

Uh-huh, yup. are coming from mammalian collagen, meaning bovine and porcine sources. Now we're trying to introduce a new collagen source, which is jellyfish. The advantages that we have with jellyfish is that jellyfish is one of the few Wow. marine species whose biomass is going to increase exponentially in the next few years. And, arguably, it's due to global warming, unfortunately. Oceans are getting warmer, are getting more acidic, and that's just killing a lot of the jellyfish predators. Across the globe, not only here in coastal Georgia, there is, it's been reported that more jellyfish blooms have been spotted, meaning all the biomass of jellyfish is increasing. The question is, what are we going to do with that excess biomass of jellyfish? Are we gonna do anything? Are we just gonna you know, let it rot in our beaches? And speaking of that, if you go to Savannah, January, February, you will see a lot of jellyfish wash off, you know, on the

Kevin Mis Solval: 27:50

of jellyfish in that one town operation. beaches in that area. You will be amazed seeing how much jellyfish biomass is there. So definitely there is a good supply of jellyfish. When we started working with this project several years ago, we spoke with several companies interested in commercializing all these technologies. One of the questions that we are asked all the time is how much jellyfish is in the ocean, right? Obviously, that's not my area of expertise. I'm not a marine biologist, but we were really curious about, you know, how much jellyfish is in the ocean? So what I did, we were looking for other jellyfish fisheries in North America. And turns out, we found that there is a jellyfish fishery in Mexico. Gulf of Santa Clara has the largest jellyfish fishery in the United States. So we're lucky enough, you know, to make contact with them, and they invited us for their harvest in 2022 last year, so I took my PhD student who is, you know, leading the project, in charge of the project. So we went there to Gulf of Santa Clara, in Mexico. I was fascinated because that fisherman town is in the middle of a desert. It was an incredible, incredible experience. And we were fascinated about the amount of jellyfish we saw there. Last year, they processed 500,000 tons

Emily Davenport: 29:29

Wow.

Jordan Powers: 29:30

How exciting, both for the program and for

Kevin Mis Solval: 29:30

So, and they say they're seeing more jellyfish, you know, every year. We suspect that probably same quantities are going to be found here in Georgia. It's the same this PhD student who really gets to spearhead this project and species, same type of jellyfish with you know, great potential for becoming a really good raw material for collagen-based products. Now we're looking at, you know, studying, understanding more about the technical aspects of these products. You know, we filed for a patent a couple of years ago with the University of Georgia Innovation Gateway. So we're expecting that and of course, as a researcher, we're publishing the data in scientific journals. We want to share the knowledge as well with the world because jellyfish is one of the few make it happen. And we know we've covered over the years, marine species who more people are experimenting with across the globe, not only in the United States, but also in Europe and Asia. They're recognizing the potential economic opportunities that may come with these marine species. That's kind of, you know, where we are right now. My PhD student, Peter Chiarelli, who is leading the project, received a several articles on the jellyfish project. So we'll make USDA predoctoral, NIFA predoctoral fellowship, to work on jellyfish. And that fellowship is a prestigious one, one of the most prestigious awards that a PhD student in food science can receive. So I'm so glad, you know, so thankful for that and all the support that we have received from federal government, state government, and also industry and, of course, University of Georgia. sure to link those in the show notes for our listeners, so that they can learn a little bit more.

Emily Davenport: 31:18

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mis Solval: 31:19

Excellent.

Jordan Powers: 31:20

So one of the techniques or processes that you've mentioned several times now is spray drying. We got a little bit of an inside scoop, because last time we were in Griffin, we got to tour FoodPIC, and see kind of the spray drying technology in action. But for our listeners who might not be familiar, can you explain a little bit more about what spray

Kevin Mis Solval: 31:36

Spray drying is a technology that was drying is? introduced more than a century ago, by the dairy industry. They had a challenge on making shelf stable milk, they were producing a lot of milk, but they didn't realize that they didn't have enough capacity to, you know, refrigerate all that milk. So they came up with an idea of using hot air to dehydrate, you know, milk. So spray drying is that technology that uses, most of the time hot air, and that hot air will get in contact with spray product, you see this small droplets getting in contact with hot air. And that instantly will dehydrate the product. And so you can collect powders. So it's a technology to produce powders, because it's versatility, its effectiveness, and cost effectiveness, most importantly, it's widely used not only in the food industry, but also pharmaceutical industries, and also chemical industry. And now by the material industry as well. So you can have you know, food powders, shelf stable or with low moisture content. These powders will last years. And that's why it is a technology that is widely adopted by different industries.

Emily Davenport: 32:49

That's really cool.

Jordan Powers: 32:51

I remember it looked like it was snowing the time when we got to see it because I think it was a milk product.

Emily Davenport: 32:55

Mm-hmm.

Jordan Powers: 32:55

And I'm like, oh, it just looks like a little chamber of snow.

Emily Davenport: 32:59

Just making some snow, hot snow.

Jordan Powers: 33:04

When talking about innovation, right, of food products, you mentioned the UGA Food Process Innovation and Commercialization Center earlier, or FoodPIC, as we commonly call it, because that's a mouthful, that I can't believe I got through on one take.

Emily Davenport: 33:17

Yeah, I'm impressed. I was like, wait, what is that place you were talking about? Oh, yeah.

Everyone: 33:21

[laughter]

Jordan Powers: 33:23

Can you tell us more about FoodPIC and how you partner with Georgia food businesses specifically?

Kevin Mis Solval: 33:28

You know, when I was hired five years ago, part of my job was to work with FoodPIC. At the time I worked with Dr. Kirk Kealy was the FoodPIC director. So we conducted different projects. One of them was the pomegranate project that I previously explained. And I also was helping Dr. Kealy's team to work with some companies and develop either new food processing operations or, you know, implementing or optimizing food processing operations for a specific client food because clients, domestic clients that at the time, they needed optimization of spray drying operations. So that's, you know, some of the work I help with in other areas. I also help with product development approaches. So we had a project with a company that was trying to develop products from corn processing waste streams. So we're looking at waste streams and trying to develop spray dried food ingredients from those waste streams. That's kind of, you know, the work that we have done with FoodPIC and I served as the interim director of FoodPIC in 2021 to 2022. We worked with other companies and help companies to develop products and also contact shelf life studies among other things. So FoodPIC is always busy.

Everyone: 34:52

[laughter]

Jordan Powers: 34:52

It is. Well, and especially that work with the industry byproducts that you've just talked about with FoodPIC and then previously with with some of the other projects you've worked on, what an amazing way to promote sustainability, to reduce food waste. You know, again, we talked about kind of the trifecta of people that are benefiting from these research products. But at the end of the day, I mean, the environment is benefiting as well, which is really exciting.

Emily Davenport: 35:13

Yeah, it's really great. Getting creative with Georgia food commodities, too, which is also great to stick close to home. Can you tell us more about what Smart Food Processing is? And how you use it in your research?

Kevin Mis Solval: 35:27

Right, thank you for asking that question. Having worked in the industry in another, in a completely different industry to the food industry, I saw a lot of the really nice technologies that other industries are using to improve processes, you know, really nice gadgets, state-of-the-art technologies. And I was fascinated by it. And you know, at the time, of course, obviously, my hands were tied, I couldn't really explore those technologies, because I had one job and that was running the spray dryers and leading that team, and then being in now in an academic environment, where I have the opportunity to explore those ideas, explore, you know, how do we improve current food processing operations using modern technologies? And unfortunately, you know, food industry has lagged into adopting other, you know, technologies that are being very effective in other industries. And some of those technologies are, like, you know, thermal imaging, for example. That's a specific example that I can share with you. Thermal imaging technologies are kind of a, you know, well studied in other fields, but not really in the food processing environment. Part of the work that we are doing is using thermal cameras to get thermal images of food processing operations. So we can see a different physical phenomena, especially heat transfer, energy transfer phenomena, with these cameras. It turns out that some of these devices, they used to be extremely expensive 10, 15 years ago. Nowadays, they are like in the hundreds. So we, one project that we had funded with the Central for Product Safety, we looked at using thermal cameras that can be connected with the smartphones, those cameras can be easily used and operated by food operators to look at the temperatures of fresh produce. That was a really nice, interesting project. Nobody had thought about it and we were, like, evaluating the effectiveness of using those cameras and making recommendations about whether those cameras could collect, you know, reliable data that could be compared with our regular thermometers, or thermocouples, regular temperature recorders. And turns out, they're even more effective, because, you know, you can collect temperature data in real time, and with non-contact approaches. So yeah, and there are older technologies, as well as smart technologies, that can be used to improve our food operations. And that's why I think now, one of the areas that my group is focusing on is to how do we adopt all these technologies that are out there and implement those technologies for the benefit of the food industry?

Emily Davenport: 38:12

We've heard you're focusing on developing simulations to optimize food processing conditions. So for our audience who doesn't, might not have computer science backgrounds, tell us more about what's involved. And how often do you get to play with virtual reality?

Kevin Mis Solval: 38:29

Right, that's a good question. Computer simulations are cool tools, I would say, that I started working with when I was in grad school. In fact, on my PhD thesis was about computer simulations of spray drying operations. A lot of the processes that we currently use in the food industry, we don't understand them really well, in terms of the physical phenomena that is happening. With computer simulations, you know, these simulations do is they help us to gain a better understanding of the physical phenomena, meaning, heat, mass transfer, energy transfer, all these things that physicists and engineers like to, you know, study. And the main reason for that is because we wanted to gain all that knowledge so we can improve that operation. We can improve not only the operation, but also improve the type of products that are being processed with that operation. In the case of spray drying, the work that I did was to understand how this hot air was actually interacting with all these products that were being dried. So by understanding that, we could design better operations, so the product, the resulting food powders that came out of the spray dryer, were higher quality and more nutritious, and of course safe. So that's one of the ways, you know, we use computer simulations. And the, another advantage of using computer simulations is also that they're more cost effective than, compared to conducting experimental work in the field, so with computer simulation, we, you know, simulate something that will happen in reality, right? So we simulate a spray drying operation, for example. So we can simulate different conditions or have different assumptions. And we'll have the specific answers. So that definitely helped me speed up the, you know, R&D process. And that's definitely beneficial. And speaking of virtual reality, so, I started working with virtual reality a couple of years ago, because we had a problem with showing our FoodPIC facilities, actually. So we get clients from all over the, you know, the United States wanted to see what kind of equipment we had in FoodPIC. And what, how our facilities look like. So we came up with the idea, oh, why don't we 3D scan the facilities, and we share that scan with our potential clients? And that's where we started working with virtual reality. And we get really excited about the quality of the scans that we could collect, and then the type of tools that the client needed to observe all those, you know, 3D scans, these virtual realities. And it turns out, that it has a lot of applications to improve food safety operations, food processing operations. For example, if you are in corporate headquarters, let's say Chicago, and you have facilities in Georgia, and you want to see how your current facilities look like, you can definitely you know, access some of these 3D models of your facilities, and observe how the current status of your facility look like. We have done 3D scanned several commercial food processing facilities over the years. That has helped a lot the clients to improve their operations. So we're really fascinated by that, and that's a couple of examples that how we have used that technology to improve operations.

Emily Davenport: 41:57

Cool, wow.

Jordan Powers: 41:58

It is. It's incredible to think about, you know, obviously, spray drying doesn't look like what it did centuries ago. But it's amazing to talk about a technology that has been around for centuries, and then all of this new technology really just coming together. And again, I still, it just blows my mind that at the end of the day, when you pull that product off the shelf and go to check out at the grocery store, I guarantee you for most people, these are not the thoughts that probably go through their head. Grocery shopping must be a lot different for you.

Everyone: 42:23

[laughter]

Emily Davenport: 42:23

Yeah, right?

Jordan Powers: 42:27

But we have, we've covered so much ground today, from some of these new technologies to the age-old technologies to a focus on Georgia commodities that turn around and impact the world. What have we missed?

Kevin Mis Solval: 42:38

I just want to say I'm so blessed and grateful to have my current position. Like I said before, I don't remember having so much fun, you know, in my job. It's definitely a privilege to have the opportunity to work for University of Georgia as a faculty member with a great, great, great team. I couldn't have achieved what I have achieved without obviously the support of my family, my mentors, my department, an incredible department head that is always supportive. He is providing some resources for us to explore in other areas of research. And also the support from our college, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. And the University of Georgia and of course, the University of Georgia Griffin Campus. I feel that I'm so blessed. I'm so happy here to spend more time with my students, my staff, it's a privilege to mentor all these young people as well, I definitely enjoy working with them, I'm so happy when they they publish an article or they they receive an award. And that makes me really happy. That brings me joy, definitely more than you know, publishing an article, it, the impact that my work is having on other people's lives, especially the young ones. So I'm fully dedicated to training the next generation of food scientists, food innovators, very positive that a lot of my current students, they will join industry, federal, or state government, you know, in key positions in the next few years. So, and that's the legacy that I want to leave behind. And I appreciate the opportunity that you're providing me the platform to share some of my accomplishments with the general public. And we're always open, you know, to conversations and willing to learn more about how we can help. That's our dilemma in the lab, how we can help. How we can help our industry, how we can help our community. Always the question I ask myself and my team, how we can help.

Jordan Powers: 44:38

I can't think of a more perfect or inspirational way to end this conversation.

Emily Davenport: 44:42

Yeah.

Jordan Powers: 44:42

So, Kevin, thank you so much for inviting us out to the Griffin Campus and taking the time today.

Kevin Mis Solval: 44:46

Thank you so much.

Emily Davenport: 44:47

Thank you. Yay! Yay. Thanks for listening to cultivating

Sound Effect: 44:51

[music] curiosity, a podcast produced by the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences A special thanks to Mason McClintock for our music and sound effects. Find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts.