The cereal processing industry may be described as any industry that takes a
cereal or a cereal product as its raw material. Most cereal processes produce
foodstuffs but a few produce items such as starch for industrial or other uses.
Because of the importance of cereals in the human food chain, cereals
processing has evolved dramatically from humble beginnings as one of the
world’s oldest industries to the sophisticated one we know today. It took many
incremental advances to achieve today’s state of the art. This book aims to
highlight some of the more recent contributions to this continual evolution.
Why are cereals so dominant in the food sector? The answer is simple.
Cereals are a versatile and reliable source of food. They are easy to store and
may be used to produce a myriad of food products. Cereals processing thus
forms a large and important part of the food production chain. It also plays a
lesser, but no less important role in the non-food sector. It is for these reasons
that ways of improving cereal processing technology and practice need to be
addressed on a continual basis. There are many texts available, such as ‘Kent’s
Technology of Cereals’ that address the basic issues of cereals processing, but
there are few texts available that review the most recent developments in each
processing sector. This collection seeks to address this gap.
