Trends in food emulsion technology: Pickering, nano-, and double emulsions

Abstract

Natural and industrial foods are often structured materials that impart texture, flavor, visual appearance, and nutritional value to the product, such as liquid–liquid emulsions stabilized by complex interfaces. This article discusses emerging trends in food emulsion technology considering modern clean label, health, and sustainability goals. Recent scientific research has focused on Pickering emulsions, nanoemulsions, and double emulsions. Tailoring interfacial properties is essential for ensured stability of these systems. Application of green ingredients such as nanocellulose and other biopolymers is increasing in prevalence. However, interfacial characterization is specialized, expensive, and time-consuming. Microfluidic and imaging-coupled artificial intelligence methods are proposed to simplify and accelerate the characterization to food products, while nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) is proposed to study the structure of multiple emulsions, facilitating the ongoing shift from largely phenomenological food emulsion approaches to interfacial engineering approaches.