Juzhong Tan can take yesterday’s leftover food scraps and turn them into today’s trendy cuisine.

The University of Delaware assistant professor of sensory science and food product development in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences is one of 11 new faculty members this school year in the UD College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He researches how to repurpose food and agricultural waste and give them new lives through novel and emerging processing technologies with the assistance of artificial intelligence and robots.

“It’s like I’m doing magic,” Tan said. “I transfer something used into something of high value.” 

Biomass wastes and byproducts such as corn stalks and cobs, oilseed meals, nutshells, and orange peels, resulting from the harvest of crops or food processing, are typically landfilled or disposed of. Tan can turn those into biochar, a black residue made from carbon that can be applied to the soil and help plants get essential nutrients. It keeps the carbon in the ground rather than sending it into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the Earth.

Or how about grape waste from winemaking? Normally, it might be disposed of in a landfill to decompose. But Tan has looked into a sweeter use for it: enhancing chocolate.

“This gives chocolate a value-added nutritional function,” Tan said.  

The term “value-added,” Tan said, means incorporating an ingredient to change a food’s taste or nutrition. 

But will consumers accept a new product or eschew it? That’s the hard part. In the case of the grape pomaces added to chocolate, Tan looked at how consumers reacted overall to mouthfeel, flavor, texture, and aftertaste.

“Overall, we found that consumers found chocolate with grape pomaces tasted even better than normal chocolate,” Tan said. “Consumers found it had an equivalent aftertaste to normal chocolate.”

This semester, Tan is teaching Food Product Development (ANFS 411/611), a capstone course for undergraduate and graduate food science students. In the hands-on engagement class specifically designed and required for food science majors and optional for other majors, Tan divides students into groups in which they’ll develop prototypes of new products with new formulas, textures, and packaging.

Tan is developing his research program, which he transferred from another university, and hopes to build on its success.

“I hope some of the products maybe can draw some of the tensions from the relevant industry,” he said, “through either food product development competitions and to see if any of the companies can maybe offer students internships and explore the collaborations.” 

Much of Tan’s research incorporates artificial intelligence. He uses AI to help create meat analogs. Think plant-based chicken. Once a meat analog is processed, he deploys a special camera that can make predictions about its texture.

He also works with AI to grow plants indoors without soil. A robotic arm to water plants; the technology informs him if the plants need water, how much water they need, and if they’re affected by any environmental stressors.

“It’s another way to improve efficiency,” Tan said. “We are creating more food without using the land. We’re reducing the waste of food processing throughout the supply chain.”

Tan comes from a background in food science and electrical engineering. So, taking a multidisciplinary approach to research is important to him. Given the University of Delaware’s reputation for its support of multidisciplinary study, Tan was excited to come and teach in Newark.

Tan sees the future and the long term as an unlimited buffet. He has big visions, including developing food centers that can source local foods and develop them from field to table. He also envisions a place where he can customize food products using 3D printing technology.

“I hope, maybe in five to 10 years, to have a center like that,” Tan said. 

As for where you’ll most likely find Tan on campus, he has a space in the Fischer Greenhouse Complex where he has set up a robotics system to grow lettuce. Or you can find him sitting down for a meal at Caesar Rodney Dining, where the food isn’t repurposed from leftover scraps but where Tan says there are plenty of food options to choose from.