Climate Change Effects and Mechanisms on Nutritional Quality and Technological Performance of Major Agri-Food Products: A Critical Review

Climate change is increasingly recognized as a major driver of alterations in food systems, affecting not only production yields but also the composition, nutritional quality, and technological performance of food raw materials. This review provides a critical synthesis of recent advances on the effects of climate change on major food matrices, including milk, cereals, vegetable oils, and fruits and vegetables. Across these systems, climate-induced stresses such as elevated temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and increased atmospheric CO2 levels have been shown to significantly modify physicochemical and biochemical properties. These changes include reductions in protein content (notably caseins in dairy systems), alterations in lipid profiles (decreased polyunsaturated fatty acids in vegetable oils), and modifications in protein quantity and functionality in cereals, as well as shifts in bioactive compounds and quality attributes in fruits and vegetables. These compositional changes are closely linked to modifications in technological performance, impacting key processing operations including breadmaking and cheesemaking, through alterations in dough rheology and milk coagulation behavior. This review also highlights the underlying mechanisms driving these climate-induced changes, as well as current knowledge gaps and future research directions to better understand and mitigate the impact of climate change on food quality and processing performance.