By the year 2000, the world population could reach 7 billion with 65-70% of this population in Asia and Africa. By 2005, 85% of the population growth is expected to be in Asia and Africa, the areas where food shortages are already most severe and the income levels are modest to low. Providing nutritional food to these developing parts of the world would require the use of separation technologies that will enable us to process food safely and economically, while reducing the energy and environmental costs associated with food processing. In this paper, the essential role of separation technologies to meet the food-processing demand of global population growth and the need for adapting these technologies to the developing parts of the world are discussed. The need for the discovery and development of novel materials for cost-effective and novel separation technologies is also addressed.