Final Report Summary - HIGHQ RTE (Innovative non-thermal processing technologies to improve the quality and safety of ready-to-eat (RTE) meals)
Food consumption patterns are changing in Europe in response to the year round availability of certain raw materials, lifestyle, media advertisements and consumers expectations for food having higher nutritional, functional and sensorial properties. The consumer demand for products of premium quality, convenient to prepare with fresh or fresh-like properties has led to an increase in popularity of ready-to-eat minimally or low processed foods. With the increasing international trade in food and the fact that manufacturing sites in one country may provide raw materials to other manufacturers or finished products for large number of consumers living in importing countries, harmonisation of the safety control procedures and the development of quantitative risk assessment is critically important when new processes are introduced in the food chain.
HIGHQ RTE will contribute to improve the knowledge of the chemical, physical, microbiological and structural modifications in food caused by non conventional or new food processing such as photosensitisation, pulsed electric fields, high pressure of homogenisation and high hydrostatic pressure under CO2 atmosphere in order to enhance their application in the food sector.
Novel non-thermal processes represent an alternative to thermal treatments to improve quality, safety and functionality of milk and milk based products. Among the alternatives proposed, the high pressure homogenisation (HPH) is one of the most promising technologies and its potential has been applied to the dairy field both for the milk decontamination and product diversification. Thus, one of the aims of this research, included in this European project, was to evaluate the potential of HPH to inactivate pathogenic species such as Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enteritidis in raw milk and to promote the proliferation and viability of probiotic bacteria inoculated in HPH processed milk.
The data obtained were compared with those obtained using traditional heat treatment. The results regarding the milk decontamination showed that the inactivation curves of S. enteritidis were linear up to the 4th cycle at 100 MPa after which their slopes diminished. Also L. monocytogenes resulted to be sensitive to HPH. A reduction of 5 Log cfu/ml was obtained with 8 pressure pushes at 100 MPa. The use of HPH applied to milk increased the performance of the probiotic cultures co-inoculated and extended the product shelf-life during the refrigerated storage. The data obtained confirmed the industrial importance of this technology both for milk decontamination and optimisation of probiotic fermented milks. In addition to the food quality purpose, the application of high pressure homogenisation can bring to several advantages also in terms of energy saving opportunities becaming a good option for the food industry.
A pamphlet to be used for the dissemination of the project has been prepared and printed. Some of the results of the research activities have been presented during international conferences both as oral or poster presentations and several manuscripts have been accepted for publication on international journals. Moreover, a questionnaire to be circulated among the consumers to find out their opinion on the new technologies has been prepared.
HIGHQ RTE will contribute to improve the knowledge of the chemical, physical, microbiological and structural modifications in food caused by non conventional or new food processing such as photosensitisation, pulsed electric fields, high pressure of homogenisation and high hydrostatic pressure under CO2 atmosphere in order to enhance their application in the food sector.
Novel non-thermal processes represent an alternative to thermal treatments to improve quality, safety and functionality of milk and milk based products. Among the alternatives proposed, the high pressure homogenisation (HPH) is one of the most promising technologies and its potential has been applied to the dairy field both for the milk decontamination and product diversification. Thus, one of the aims of this research, included in this European project, was to evaluate the potential of HPH to inactivate pathogenic species such as Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enteritidis in raw milk and to promote the proliferation and viability of probiotic bacteria inoculated in HPH processed milk.
The data obtained were compared with those obtained using traditional heat treatment. The results regarding the milk decontamination showed that the inactivation curves of S. enteritidis were linear up to the 4th cycle at 100 MPa after which their slopes diminished. Also L. monocytogenes resulted to be sensitive to HPH. A reduction of 5 Log cfu/ml was obtained with 8 pressure pushes at 100 MPa. The use of HPH applied to milk increased the performance of the probiotic cultures co-inoculated and extended the product shelf-life during the refrigerated storage. The data obtained confirmed the industrial importance of this technology both for milk decontamination and optimisation of probiotic fermented milks. In addition to the food quality purpose, the application of high pressure homogenisation can bring to several advantages also in terms of energy saving opportunities becaming a good option for the food industry.
A pamphlet to be used for the dissemination of the project has been prepared and printed. Some of the results of the research activities have been presented during international conferences both as oral or poster presentations and several manuscripts have been accepted for publication on international journals. Moreover, a questionnaire to be circulated among the consumers to find out their opinion on the new technologies has been prepared.
