High-Pressure Processing of Foods: An Overview

The quality and safety of food products are the two factors that most influence the choices made by today’s increasingly demanding consumers. Conventional food sterilization and preservation methods often result in a reduction in the apparent freshness and quality of the final products. High pressure processing is a relatively new non-thermal food processing method that subjects liquid or solid foods, with or without packaging, to pressures between 50 and 1000 MPa. Extensive investigations have revealed the potential benefits of high pressure processing as an alternative to traditional heat treatments. These benefits are apparent in various areas of food processing, such as the inactivation of microorganisms and enzymes, denaturation and alteration of the functionality of proteins, and structural changes to food materials. Moreover, high pressure can be used to enhance several processing operations, such as freezing, thawing and extraction, thus providing new processing options.