Emerging technologies in dairy processing: Present status and future potential

Abstract

Milk and Milk products are consumed by people across all ages and countries. Being highly nutritious, dairy products are known to be susceptible to microbial and enzymatic spoilage and thus mandate improved processing methods. In recent years, the development of various non-thermal technologies like high pressure processing (HPP), pulsed electric field, ultra-sonication, membrane filtration and cold plasma, have demonstrated the potential to produce shelf stable dairy products with retained nutritional parameters. On one hand where growing awareness about the effect of nutrition and bioactive compounds on human health has paved the way for emergence of state-of-art methods of food fortification, on the other, the liability of sustaining the ever-increasing and dispersing population resulted in innovations in food processing technologies; together which supported motto of 'healthy food for all'. Specifically, focusing on impacts on safety, quality and nutritional value, the chapter discusses the principle, scope, merits and limitations of emerging technologies with respect to dairy products.