Non-Thermal Food Preservation

The food-processing industry has made large investments in processing facilities relying mostly on conventional thermal processing technologies with well-established reliability and efficacy. In the whole food production chain, from the farm to the fork, food manufacturing steps have a large environmental impact. Despite significant efforts made to optimize heat recovery or water consumption, conventional food processing remains poorly efficient in terms of energy requirements and waste management. Therefore, in the few last decades, much research has focused on the development of alternative non-thermal technologies. The push for non-thermal food processing methods has emerged due to the challenges associated with thermal food processing methods, for instance, high operational costs and alteration of food nutrient components. Non-thermal food processing involves methods where the food materials receive microbiological inactivation without or with little direct application of heat. Besides being well established in scientific literature, research into non-thermal food processing technologies are constantly on the rise as applied to a wide range of food products. Due to such remarkable progress by scientists and researchers, there is need for continuous synthesis of relevant scientific literature for the benefit of all actors in the agro-food value chain, most importantly the food processors, and to supplement existing information.

Statistics showed that there is a strong consumer trend towards high-quality and healthy foods with 'fresh-like' characteristics. On the other hand, thermal processing technologies, especially conventional ones, negatively affect both sensory and nutritional properties of foods. At the same time, limited shelf-life and safety concerns of fresh foods necessitate food processing. Therefore, scientists are exploring the possibility of using non-thermal technologies for various purposes such as shelf-life extension and safety improvement. However, their applicability and scalability are still under intensive investigation.

This book, therefore, aimed to provide a technological update on some selected non-thermal food processing methods specifically focused on their operational mechanisms, their effectiveness in preserving various kinds of foods, as revealed by their merits and demerits. Some of them, such as membrane separation processes, hydrostatic or dynamic high pressure, dense phase or high-pressure carbon dioxide, and pulsed electric fields (PEFs) have been extensively studied for cold pasteurization, concentration, extraction, or food functionalization. However, it is still difficult to evaluate the actual advantages or limits of these innovative processing technologies to replace conventional processes. Thus, the overall aim of this book is to present an overview of the most relevant studies dealing with the potentialities and limits of these non-thermal technologies to improve sustainability of food processing.