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Drying is one of the oldest methods of food preservation used by human beings and also the most widely used method for food preservation purposes. The exact date when our ancestors began to dry food for preservation is unknown, but the first recorded dried vegetables appeared in the 1700s. During drying processes, water in food products is reduced to a level where the growth of spoilage microorganisms, as well as the occurrence of chemical reactions, are halted or slowed down. In addition to preservation, the reduced weight and bulk volume of dried products and their longer shelf stability reduce the costs and/or difficulties of product packaging, handling, storage, and distribution (Barbosa-Cánovas and Vega-Mercado, 1996; Toledo, 1991).

Different chapters in this book have covered basic unit operations utilized for food powders production and handling. Comprehensive descriptions of several processing features ranging from devices for bulk storage, conveying systems, and size reduction equipment to a series of methods for size enlargement, powder encapsulation, mixing, or classification have been discussed. Each of these food powder production or processing related activities can be directly or indirectly connected to physically and chemically undesirable phenomena that can be deleterious to the final products, to the ingredients utilized during the process, and/or to the equipment in the factory. This chapter will cover four different concepts with negative connotations in the production and logistics fields, known as: attrition, segregation, caking and dust explosion.