Hosahalli Ramaswamy

　　Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry Macdonald College of McGill University

　　Consumers and food processors conscious about high quality are turning from traditional heat based techniques to non-thermal processing in order to minimize thermal damage to product sensory and nutritional quality. There are several non-thermal alternatives to conventional thermal processing such as high pressure processing (HPP), pulsed electric fields (PEF), ultraviolet and pulsed light (UV, PL), ozone, plasma, sonic-steam which can be used under specific conditions to gain specific quality advantages, although a majority of them at some sacrifice to product shelf-life. HPP has been gaining popularity and has been a commercially viable process based on its proven effectiveness for various food processing applications. PEF has been very effective of liquid products and as pretreatement to many other food processing applications. The bactericidal effects of UV has been recognized for several decades, but PL is a more recent technology aimed at surface decontamination of product and package surfaces. Ozone, plasma and other newer approaches have been used primarily for minimal processing for sanitation purposes. Early efforts in these areas were mostly focussed on microbial and inactitvation studies. Regulatory bodies have cleared it’s way for pasteurization applications for a variety of foods worldwide. Getting recognized but not fully explored areas include the use of these technologies as secondary treatment for other processes such as drying, extraction etc. This presentation will provide an overview of non-thermal processing techniques with some special focus on HPP covering the basic and applied aspects, commercial applications and novelties.