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A list of activities (that could be purely intellectual and/or mathematical - computational) such as data modeling, statistical analysis, fundamental modeling, dynamic simulation and optimization, but also computer aided design and engineering, can be included in a unique, wider scheme called virtualization of processes.

Virtualization of processes is gaining interest in food engineering, though the food industry is still lagging to utilize the wide spectrum of potential opportunities offered by virtualization as an engineering design tool. The complexity of food systems and food processes themselves together with the difficulty to mathematically address the phenomena taking place at different level of scale during food processing often reduced the virtual approach to a number of intellectual/computational activities without a clear, practical, immediate use of virtual tools connected to daily-life operations in the food world. New concepts such us smart-technologies, internet of things, custom-digital life-style, can open a number of opportunities in the field of virtualization of processes in food engineering.

In this presentation, these opportunities are discussed together with the challenges to be addressed in order to make virtualization a main cornerstone in the food engineering domain.