foods Review Modelling Processes and Products in the Cereal Chain Otilia Carvalho 1,† , Maria N. Charalambides 2,† , Ilija Djeki´ c 3, * ,† , Christos Athanassiou 4 , Serafim Bakalis 5 , Jose Benedito 6 , Aurelien Briffaz 7 , Cristina Castañé 8 , Guy Della Valle 9 , Isabel Maria Nunes de Sousa 1 , Ferruh Erdogdu 10 , Aberham Hailu Feyissa 11 , Nickolas G. Kavallieratos 12 , Alexandros Koulouris 13 , Milica Poji´ c 14 , Anabela Raymundo 1 , Jordi Riudavets 8 , Fabrizio Sarghini 15 , Pasquale Trematerra 16 and Alberto Tonda 17, *   Citation: Carvalho, O; Charalambides, M.N.; Djeki´ c, I.; Athanassiou, C.; Bakalis, S.; Benedito, J.; Briffaz, A.; Castañé, C.; Della Valle, G.; de Sousa, I.M.N.; et al. Modelling Processes and Products in the Cereal Chain. Foods 2021, 10, 82. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10010 082 Received: 15 December 2020 Accepted: 26 December 2020 Published: 4 January 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- tral with regard to jurisdictional clai- ms in published maps and institutio- nal affiliations. Copyright: c  2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con- ditions of the Creative Commons At- tribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 LEAF—Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal; motiliac@isa.ulisboa.pt (O.C.); isabelsousa@isa.ulisboa.pt (I.M.N.d.S.); anabraymundo@isa.ulisboa.pt (A.R.) 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK; m.charalambides@imperial.ac.uk 3 Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia 4 Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly, 38443 Volos, Greece; athanassiou@uth.gr 5 Department of Food Science, University of Copenhagen, DK-1958 Frederiksberg, Denmark; bakalis@food.ku.dk 6 Department of Food Technology, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera, 46022 Valencia, Spain; jjbenedi@tal.upv.es 7 UMR QUALISUD, CIRAD, 34398 Montpellier, France; aurelienbriffaz@gmail.com 8 IRTA, 08348 Cabrils, Spain; cristina.castane@irta.es (C.C.); jordi.riudavets@irta.cat (J.R.) 9 UR 1268 BIA, INRAE, 44316 Nantes, France; guy.della-valle@inrae.fr 10 Department of Food Engineering, Ankara University, 06830 Ankara, Turkey; ferruherdogdu@ankara.edu.tr 11 Production Engineering, National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark; abhfe@food.dtu.dk 12 Faculty of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece; nick_kaval@aua.gr 13 Department of Food Science and Technology, International Hellenic University, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece; akoul@food.teithe.gr 14 Institute of Food Technology, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia; milica.pojic@fins.uns.ac.rs 15 Department of Agriculture, University of Naples Federico II, 80138 Napoli, Italy; sarghini@unina.it 16 Department of Agriculture, Environment and Food Sciences, University of Molise, 86100 Campobasso, Italy; trema@unimol.it 17 UMR 518 MIA, INRAE, Paris-Saclay University, 75005 Paris, France * Correspondence: idjekic@agrif.bg.ac.rs (I.D.); alberto.tonda@inrae.fr (A.T.) † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: In recent years, modelling techniques have become more frequently adopted in the field of food processing, especially for cereal-based products, which are among the most consumed foods in the world. Predictive models and simulations make it possible to explore new approaches and optimize proceedings, potentially helping companies reduce costs and limit carbon emissions. Nevertheless, as the different phases of the food processing chain are highly specialized, advances in modelling are often unknown outside of a single domain, and models rarely take into account more than one step. This paper introduces the first high-level overview of modelling techniques employed in different parts of the cereal supply chain, from farming to storage, from drying to milling, from processing to consumption. This review, issued from a networking project including researchers from over 30 different countries, aims at presenting the current state of the art in each domain, showing common trends and synergies, to finally suggest promising future venues for research. Keywords: cereals; food transformation; modelling; transformation processes Foods 2021, 10, 82. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10010082 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods