Kang Huang arrived at Washington State University less than three years ago. In that short time, he’s procured three significant grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to help bolster food safety and reduce food waste across the country.
Each project is focused on a different stage of food production: pre-harvest, processing, and post-processing.
“They all seem different, based on the timing of the food process,” said Huang, an assistant professor in WSU’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering. “But the core of the projects is the same: killing microbes that spoil food and harm people.”
The goal of reducing food waste and improving human health is a perfect example of how universities help communities, said Raj Khosla, Cashup Davis Family Endowed Dean of WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences.
“It is encouraging to see our faculty leading projects with real world impact, reducing spoilage and enhancing food safety,” Khosla said. “I’m excited to see how Dr. Huang’s work progresses over the next few years.”
The newest NIFA grant, for $650,000 over three years, supports work to develop new food-safe coatings that slow spoilage of food after it is harvested. The coatings could be applied on different surfaces, including plastic, metal, glass, or other types of food packaging containers.
“Forty percent of food produced in the U.S. is never eaten,” Huang said. “If we can reduce microbial spoilage, that means less food waste.”
Antimicrobial coatings already exist in biomedical labs and other settings. Those coatings can reduce or eliminate microbes, but they aren’t food grade. Huang and his team will take knowledge from the existing coatings and work to engineer a food-safe version.
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