In 1968, the research submarine Alvin (used for deep-sea scientific research) sank, and with it, the belongings of the crew. After remaining 9 months at 1540 m deep-sea (15 MPa) and 3-4 °C, the food products that were in Alvin seemed very well preserved. This opened the possibility of combining mild hydrostatic pressures and refrigeration temperatures for novel food preservation processes, leading to extended shelf life, being quasi energetically costless and environmentally friendlier, by microbial growth slowdown/inhibition similar to refrigeration, now known as hyperbaric storage (HS.)
HS is a new food preservation methodology that uses storage pressure control, inasmuch temperature control as in cold-based storage methodologies, to preserve food products. The pressure hurdle (up to 75 MPa), like the temperature hurdle, hinders microbial development, with the advantage of being possible to be used at room temperatures, and so quasi energetically costless, as energy is only mobilized during the short compression and decompression phases of the pressure vessel, and no additional energy is needed to either keep the pressure along storage, nor to control the temperature. At higher pressures (>75 MPa), not only microbial inhibition is observed, but also recently microbial inactivation occurs, which allows to inactivate microorganisms in foods while the food product is stored under pressure. Moreover, this methodology has proven to be effective to control endospore germination and outgrowth, with endospore inactivation also occurring along storage. From the observations made for pressures =150 MPa (microbial inactivation along storage), a new pasteurization procedure is also now proposed, termed moderate-pressure pasteurization (MPP), wherein moderate pressures (150-300 MPa) are applied between 24-48h to slowly pasteurize foods along storage, which can be particularly relevant for proteinaceous foods that are especially sensible to the current commercial high-pressure pasteurization.
Speaker Information:
Dr Jorge A. Saraiva is an Associate Professor at the University of Aveiro, in the Chemistry Department, where he teaches Food Science and Technology, Food Biotechnology, and Biocatalysts since 1997. He published more than 280 scientific papers, 20 book chapters, among other publications, being recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher from Clarivate Analytics in 2021 and 2022 in Agricultural Sciences. He has also received an Honourable Mention in the area of Sciences in the scope of the Researcher Award of the University of Aveiro in 2021 and was Secretary of Nonthermal Processing Division at IFT. Currently, his most active research area is in the field of food Hyperbaric Storage.
Carlos A. Pinto is a PhD student in the Chemistry Department of the University of Aveiro under the Supervision of Professor Jorge Saraiva. He has been working on pressure-based strategies (namely Hyperbaric Storage) for the inactivation of bacterial and fungi...
In 1968, the research submarine Alvin (used for deep-sea scientific research) sank, and with it, the belongings of the crew. After remaining 9 months at 1540 m deep-sea (15 MPa) and 3-4 °C, the food products that were in Alvin seemed very well preserved. This opened the possibility of combining mild hydrostatic pressures and refrigeration temperatures for novel food preservation processes, leading to extended shelf life, being quasi energetically costless and environmentally friendlier, by microbial growth slowdown/inhibition similar to refrigeration, now known as hyperbaric storage (HS.)
HS is a new food preservation methodology that uses storage pressure control, inasmuch temperature control as in cold-based storage methodologies, to preserve food products. The pressure hurdle (up to 75 MPa), like the temperature hurdle, hinders microbial development, with the advantage of being possible to be used at room temperatures, and so quasi energetically costless, as energy is only mobilized during the short compression and decompression phases of the pressure vessel, and no additional energy is needed to either keep the pressure along storage, nor to control the temperature. At higher pressures (>75 MPa), not only microbial inhibition is observed, but also recently microbial inactivation occurs, which allows to inactivate microorganisms in foods while the food product is stored under pressure. Moreover, this methodology has proven to be effective to control endospore germination and outgrowth, with endospore inactivation also occurring along storage. From the observations made for pressures =150 MPa (microbial inactivation along storage), a new pasteurization procedure is also now proposed, termed moderate-pressure pasteurization (MPP), wherein moderate pressures (150-300 MPa) are applied between 24-48h to slowly pasteurize foods along storage, which can be particularly relevant for proteinaceous foods that are especially sensible to the current commercial high-pressure pasteurization.
Speaker Information:
Dr Jorge A. Saraiva is an Associate Professor at the University of Aveiro, in the Chemistry Department, where he teaches Food Science and Technology, Food Biotechnology, and Biocatalysts since 1997. He published more than 280 scientific papers, 20 book chapters, among other publications, being recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher from Clarivate Analytics in 2021 and 2022 in Agricultural Sciences. He has also received an Honourable Mention in the area of Sciences in the scope of the Researcher Award of the University of Aveiro in 2021 and was Secretary of Nonthermal Processing Division at IFT. Currently, his most active research area is in the field of food Hyperbaric Storage.
Carlos A. Pinto is a PhD student in the Chemistry Department of the University of Aveiro under the Supervision of Professor Jorge Saraiva. He has been working on pressure-based strategies (namely Hyperbaric Storage) for the inactivation of bacterial and fungi spores. Carlos has published more than 25 scientific papers and 6 book chapters and is a student representative in the Nonthermal Processing Division at IFT.
