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Schaefer SEE and LS Instruments at the 7th Food Structure & Functionality Symposium 2026

Event - Congress -Workshop

Sunday 18 October 2026 - 14:00 to 17:30

SEE Srl and LS Instruments at Food Structure & Functionality Symposium 2026 in Grado, featuring DWS RheoLab optical rheometer and Semplor NANOS desktop SEM.

Saturday, October 10, 2026

Exploring food microstructure and rheology with advanced, non-destructive characterization technologies

18–21 October 2026 | Grado, Italy

Schaefer SEE is pleased to announce its participation, together with LS Instruments, in the 7th Food Structure & Functionality Symposium, taking place from October 18 to 21, 2026, in Grado, Italy.

As the official Italian distributor of LS Instruments, Schaefer SEE will join its Swiss partner as a sponsor of this international scientific event, bringing innovative characterization solutions to researchers and professionals working in food science, formulation, and product development.

Organized by Elsevier and the Food Structure and Functionality Forum, the symposium brings together leading researchers and industry experts to explore the relationship between food structure, processing, functionality, and sensory properties.

This year's scientific program addresses several key topics, including the relationship between mechanisms and microstructure, novel processing strategies, and advances in characterization techniques.

The event's program

DWS RheoLab™: Non-Contact Optical Rheology for Food Applications

One of the highlights of our participation will be the DWS RheoLab™ from LS Instruments, an advanced optical rheometer based on Diffusing Wave Spectroscopy (DWS).

Unlike conventional mechanical rheometers, the DWS RheoLab measures the viscoelastic properties of complex materials without applying external mechanical deformation to the sample.

By analyzing the microscopic motion of tracer particles through multiple light scattering, DWS provides highly sensitive information about the dynamics and rheological behavior of soft, turbid, and structured materials.

This makes the instrument particularly valuable for food science applications, where understanding how microstructure evolves during processing, gelation, and storage is essential for optimizing product performance.

Key applications in food research include:

Gelation and structural transitions: investigating gel formation and identifying gel points in gelatin, hydrocolloids, and protein-based systems.
Dairy and fermented products: monitoring microstructural and rheological changes during acidification and fermentation.
Protein formulations: studying structural changes induced by temperature, salts, and other processing conditions.
Emulsions and dispersions: detecting early signs of instability and monitoring structural evolution during storage.
Product stability and shelf-life: performing non-destructive measurements over time, including in sealed sample containers.

Thanks to its contact-free approach, small sample volume requirements, and broad accessible frequency range, the DWS RheoLab offers a powerful complement to conventional mechanical rheometry, particularly when studying fragile structures or subtle changes that precede macroscopic transformations.

Discover the technology: LS Instruments – DWS RheoLab™

Webinar: Microrheology in Food Applications

Discover how Diffusing Wave Spectroscopy (DWS) can be used to measure the rheological properties of turbid, soft, and structured materials undergoing dynamic changes, without applying mechanical deformation.

This non-invasive approach offers several important advantages, including fast and straightforward measurements, the possibility of working with sealed sample containers, and excellent potential for automated measurements.

The webinar introduces the fundamental principles of DWS and the technology behind the DWS RheoLab, followed by practical examples of its application in food science:

Detecting the gel point and gelation temperature of gelatin and other gelling systems.
Following the acidification and gelation of fermented dairy products, such as yogurt, at the microstructural level.
Characterizing heat- and salt-induced structural changes in protein dispersions.
Monitoring the onset of instability in emulsions for accelerated shelf-life testing.

As a non-destructive technique, DWS is particularly well suited to characterizing fragile and weakly structured samples, while maintaining exceptional sensitivity to the earliest microstructural changes.

This makes it an ideal complement to mechanical rheometry and an important tool for understanding the relationship between food processing, microstructure, and functionality.