Food processing must evolve to solve global challenges

Humans have continuously evolved the agrifood system to achieve adequate, safe, nutritious and, more recently, sustainable food supplies. Industrialization introduced modern farming equipment, food factories, and global distribution networks, substantially increasing production while improving safety, access and resource efficiency. Despite these advances, agrifood systems remain major contributors to environmental pressures and sometimes produce food of low nutritional value. Consequently, food systems must evolve to reflect and balance changing consumer needs and priorities, technological progress, and planetary boundaries to ensure adequate nutrition for a growing and diverse population. As a central element of the agrifood chain, advancements in food processing can better align products with these goals. Drawing on insights from 1)population dynamics, needs and preferences, 2)food production and processing, and 3)impacts of food on healthy diets, this perspective examines how food processing can support nutritious, safe, and affordable diets while building resilience across the food system. Food processing is not an isolated technical activity, but a strategic interface through which upstream drivers (e.g., demographic change, agricultural variability) are translated into downstream outcomes (e.g., nutritional quality, consumer acceptance). Collectively, this perspective delivers an interdisciplinary reflection on the challenges food systems face and contextualizes how these elements influence meeting global food demands.