High pressure processing in combination with high temperature and other preservation factors

Abstract

High pressure processing (HPP) has shown its efficacy in treating a number of food products of very diverse origin. For this reason, HPP has been adopted by a number of food processing companies to replace or partially replace existing preservation techniques. At the same time, HPP offers the possibility to develop new products with very attractive characteristics. Nevertheless, this novel technology has some limitations, and one way to enhance its efficacy is to combine it with others where synergistic or additive effects are attained. The most noticeable combination is what is known as pressure assisted thermal sterilization (PATS), an approach which is developing interest at the academic and industrial levels because it offers the opportunity to sterilize foods where the quality of the finished product is superior to those processed by conventional thermal treatments. HPP could also be combined with other so-called hurdles such as carbon dioxide, bacteriocins, vegetable extracts, organic acids, osmotic dehydration, pulsed electric fields, and ohmic heating, to name a few. These combinations and a few others are covered in this chapter where PATS receives the most attention.