Hot food under pressure

European researchers carried out final tests on an innovative technique to lengthen shelf life of food

A robotic arm grabs a long metallic cylindrical container and puts it smoothly into a steaming water basin. Benito de Orte, co-owner of the engineering company Metronics, observes carefully how the arm lifts a second container out of the water and places it on a conveyor belt, which transports it to the pressurisation unit. His eyes relax as the container enters the pressure chamber. A group of food technologists have come to his workshop in the outskirts of Pamplona, Spain, to watch a presentation of the first prototype of an HPT machine.

HPT stands for High Pressure and Temperature and is a new food processing concept that involves three steps. First, the food samples are pre-heated, then very high pressure is applied, and finally, the pressure is released and the food is cooled down again.

Until recently, scientists were not 100% sure whether this method would be able to eliminate the risks of food contamination by microbiological pathogens, nor was it clear what kind of food products would be suitable for this treatment. Therefore, the European Commission supported a research project called HIPSTER, where food technologists, microbiological experts and engineers joined forces to investigate the pro and cons of HPT. Part of this project was to build this prototype machine.

During the presentation, Benito de Orte shares some insider information on his machine: “We had suffered a number of set-backs. For example, the first version of the pressure chamber did not perform as planned.” Only six months before delivery, a patent issue forced him to change the alignment of the pressure chamber. But finally – with a delay of a few months – Benito de Orte was able to present a machine that is working and performing.

The core and at the same time Achilles’ heel of the process, is the pressure chamber. Here, the 30-litre cylinder with the preheated food is inserted, filled with water and pressure applied. In less than a minute, the pressure rises to 100, 250 and eventually 600 MPa, which is equivalent to six times the pressure at the bottom of the oceans.
Pa stands for Pascal a unit of pressure. It is named after French scientist Blaise Pascal, who in the 17th century studied the effects of pressure on fluids. The term pascalisation is the method used to preserve and pasteurise food by high pressure. But how successful is the pasteurisation, when you preheat a product and then apply high pressure to it?

High pressure alone can inactivate vegetative bacteria on the food, but not the spores that could make it unsafe or lead to spoilage. Therefore, Silvia Garcia de la Torre and her team from the Spanish National Centre for Technology and Food Safety CNTA, partner of the project, have investigated whether pre-heating the food to around 80°C could help to inactivate the spores. A temperature of 80°C alone would not be sufficient, but due to the thermal law of physics, the food heats up even more as the pressure is applied.

As the pressure rises to 600 MPa, the food heats up to around 120°C by this phenomena. In a series of experimental tests, the researchers were able to show that the most critical microbial pathogens in food products were inactivated by this combination of heat and high pressure. This is good news for the food industry interested in adapting the HPT treatment in the future.

Source: http://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/141919_en.html?isPermaLink=true&WT.mc_i...