Novel Food Processing Technologies

All food processing involves a combination of procedures to achieve the intended changes to the raw materials. These are conveniently categorised as unit operations, each of which has a specific, identifiable and predictable effect on a food. The main aim of novel food processing technologies is to reduce the damage to food caused by processing ie., texture, taste, flavor, aroma and colour. Heat processing is a major cause of changes to nutritional properties of foods. Oxidation is a second important cause of nutritional changes to foods. This occurs when food is exposed to air. At the time of harvest or slaughter, most foods are likely to contain contaminants, to have components which are inedible or to have variable physical characteristics (for example shape, size or colour). It is therefore necessary to perform one or more of the unit operations of cleaning, sorting, grading or peeling to ensure that foods with a uniformly high quality are prepared for subsequent processing. Thermal processing leads to reduction of nutritional quality and generation of off flavour, off colour and other sensory properties of food products. Therefore, in order to improve food quality and sensory properties, novel non-thermal food processing technologies are needed. The various non-thermal food technologies used now a day in food industries are discussed below.

• High Hydrostatic Pressure (HPP)
• Pulsed Electric Field (PEF)
• Irradiation
• Pulsed light technology (PLT)