High Pressure Processing of Fruit and Vegetable Products

High pressure processing is a fast-growing food processing technology and opens the door to nearly-fresh products that retain their sensorial and nutritional qualities. High Pressure Processing of Fruit and Vegetable Products reviews and summarizes the latest advances in novel high-pressure processing techniques for preserving fruits, fruit juices, and their mixtures. It contains basic information on the relation of high-process treatment parameters with the safety and quality of fruit and vegetable juices/products. The book focuses on product quality parameters, nutritional value, bio-active health components, and microbial safety and stability.

The main aim of this book is to summarize the advances in the utilization of modern high pressure pasteurization (HPP) treatment to preserve and stabilize fruit and vegetable products. HPP technology is related to the product quality parameters, the content of nutritional and health active components, and the microbial safety and subsequent shelf life.

One chapter of this book is devoted to industrial equipment available; other chapters deal with examples of commercial fruit and vegetable products. Another chapter of this book is dedicated to packaging, as packaging of food before HPP is mandatory in this technology. The regulatory aspects for high-pressure treated fruit and vegetable products in different regions of the world (Europe, the United States, Asia, and Australia) are also an important topic dealt within one chapter of the book. The effects of HPP technology on the quality of fruit and vegetable products, namely nutrients and stability, health active components, and sensory aspects, are reviewed in a trio of chapters.

Dr. Milan Houška is the head of the Department of food engineering at FRIP. He received PhD degree after 3 years study at Department of process engineering at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. The title of the PhD thesis was “Engineering Rheology of Thixotropic Fluids”. After finishing PhD studies he started to work at FRIP at the Department of physical properties of foods, where studies of texture and mechanical and thermal properties were conducted. After several years of the work in this department he got a head of this department. After joining with department of heat processing of foods, he started to be leader of the joint departments with the title Department of food engineering.

Dr. Filipa Vinagre Marques da Silva research activity and interests are in Food Process Engineering, in particular studying the effects of new food preservation technologies such as high pressure processing (HPP), on food safety and shelf-life, and the design of proper pasteurisation processes. Her expertise in microbiology and enzymes are helpful for studying the effect of emerging food pasteurization technologies on food spoilage microbes/enzymes. The production of plant extracts and the determination of their biological activity such as antibacterial, antifungal and insecticidal activities, is another area of research.