ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the effects factors will have on our ability to change and improve the ways in which we produce, preserve, and distribute foods. It discusses the last category, scientific and engineering advances, in greatest detail. The marketing of food is regulated by a myriad of complex laws and regulations, administered by several agencies within several government departments. The development of new food products and processes in the food industry is driven by the profit motive. The food industry has been able to overcome some labor-cost increases by importing labor for agricultural tasks or raw food materials from faraway places. The availability of new computer software and hardware has already had an enormous impact on practices in the food and related industries. The same principle of tailoring being used in food composition is now being used, and will be used on a much higher scale, in the manufacture of food-packaging materials.
