High Pressure Processing for Food Fermentation

Abstract

Changing lifestyles and modernization has resulted in growing consumer demand for food commodities with superior quality attributes. The emergence of “non-thermal” processing techniques, which have a limited impact on nutritional and sensory properties of food, has been a major breakthrough in the food sector. There are many innovative techniques which employ the use of various preservation factors that can be used to replace thermal processing, thus reducing nutrient losses, resulting in better nutritive quality with greater consumer acceptability. High pressure processing is a cold pasteurization technique that employs high pressure to destruct spoilage and pathogenic microbes. Most of the time, multiple preservation factors or hurdles are used in combination to ensure safe, shelf-stable, and high-quality food products. The synergistic effect of HPP and additional hurdles on quality parameters and shelf life of various food commodities is reviewed. The advantages and certain limitations of HPP are also discussed.