Food science and engineering traditionally have been the basis for the development of the process technology related to the manufacture of foods. While these disciplines remain important, new challenges for the food industry have created an incentive to explore the potential of recent advances in computer-aided engineering. Such challenges include consistent quality, productivity, safety, and environmental and consumer friendliness. In this paper, we briefly describe a number of food engineering tasks for which computers and food engineering principles which can provide powerful aids are outlined, and the fundamental and practical problems associated with these tasks are identified. Examples of our experience with theoretical and applied developments for specific food engineering software are provided. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.