Introduction to High Pressure Processing Process.

Food processing is the transformation of raw animal or plant materials into products that can be consumed to stabilize the food products by preventing or reducing negative changes in quality. Without this food processing, the food cannot be stored for a long time. Thus, this will be a problem for the food that need to be transported for a long distance. Therefore, there are many food processing technologies that can be explored and implemented in order to provide safety, fresher-tasting and nutritive foods without using of heat or chemical preservatives (E. Hogan, 2008). One of the technologies is by using high pressure processing (HPP).

High pressure processing (HPP) is a non-thermal technique of food preservation that inactivates the harmful pathogens and spoilage microorganisms by using pressure rather than heat to induce a pasteurization effect. This pressure treatment can be used to both liquid and solid foods with high moisture content (Giriprasad, 2015). Although it can kill the microorganisms, this pressure treatment does not break the covalent bonds and has a minimal effect on food chemistry. Besides, the treatment also can retain the food quality while avoiding the need for excessive thermal processing or chemical preservatives. This treatment also known as high hydro-static pressure (HHP) or ultra-high pressure (UHP) processing (M.V. Muntean, 2016).

Compared to traditional thermal processing technology such as traditional thermal pasteurization, HPP is performed at room temperature and thus reduces the energy consumption that associated with heating and cooling process (M Sai Srinivas, 2018). There are some advantages by using this high-pressure processing (HPP).

Advantages of High Pressure Processing process.

The egg that shown in figure 1 is visually similar to a thermally processed hardboiled egg. The taste of the pressure treated egg is however closer to that raw egg as temperature induced flavour changes by chemical reactions but this problem did not occur during HPP.

                      Figure 1: Denatured eggs by heat and pressure effect. (Source: M.V. Muntean, 2016)

     To achieve the best pressure transmission, the ideal food for HPP has no gas inclusions, no empty spaces in the package and a high content of moisture. Vacuum packed products in flexible packages appear ideal for HPP, particularly if the packaging could be compressed for about 15% with no structural damage and if it were able to return to its original shape upon pressure release. Currently, the flexible packs, jars, trays and bottles are used as HPP packaging.

REFERENCES

E. Hogan, A. K. (2008). High Pressure Processing of Foods:. An Overview.

Giriprasad, R. Y. (2015). HIGH PRESSURE PROCESSING FOOD TECHNOLOGIES . International Journal of Science, Environment and Technology, Vol. 4, No 1, 108 – 113.

M Sai Srinivas, B. M. (2018). High Pressure Processing of Foods: A Review. The Andhra Agric. J 65, 467-476.

M.V. Muntean, O. M. (2016). High pressure processing in food industry. Agriculture and agriculture science procedia.