Dr. Ogawa currently focuses on the agricultural and food process engineering. He was conferred PhD in Agricultural Engineering from Kagoshima University in 1998. He worked at National Food Research institute in Tsukuba and USDA Western Regional Research Center in California as a post-doctoral fellow, and at Kurashiki-Sakuyo University as a lecture. He started to work for Faculty of Horticulture, Chiba University in 2005. Recently, he is focusing on food quality assessment including food digestibility. His main researches are; 1) impact of postharvest and food processing and cooking procedure on a digestibility of processed food materials examined by a simulated in vitro digestion technique, 2) development of long-term preservation method for fresh-cut vegetables and fruits controlled by atmospheric and lighting condition.

Current Research Topics

1. Studies on a digestibility of botanical food products

   Usually, food digestibility is studied in nutritional and medical research field. However, it is well known that cooking and processing affects food digestibility, for example the digestibility of cooked white rice is different from rice porridge and cooked brown rice even if it uses same resources. While it is mostly guessing that the reason of different digestibility among them is according to changes in structural characteristics and/or ingredient compositions of food material, etc., the details have actually not been unknown, yet. Hence, we are studying about the impact of cooking and processing for food resources on its digestibility applying simulated in vitro gastro-intestinal digestion technique from structural viewpoints by means of microscopy such as SEM, LSM, etc. The physical and physicochemical properties of food materials during processing are also examined and evaluated to understand food digestibility. Recently, we employ as test samples for grains of rice and wheat, soybean, agar gel as a food model, citrus peel tissue as a plant cell model in this research topic.

2. Studies on a quality maintenance of fresh-cut vegetables & fruits during cold storage

   Physical environment such as atmospheric and lighting conditions affects qualities of harvested botanical products during storage. For example, controlled atmosphere (CA) technique is applied to maintaining quality of harvested materials for long-term storage, because that reduces respiration activity. We, therefore, apply this kind technology to preserve fresh-cut products, which is still alive in cellular level and exactly packaged in appropriate circumstances using film materials. Recently, we examine the effect of gas conditions filled in the package on quality maintenance of fresh-cut bell peppers evaluated by changes in compound contents and physical properties during storage. The effect of sterilization fluid during washing process before storage on elution of constituents from fresh-cut products is also investigated in this study.