High-pressure processing of fish and shellfish products: Safety, quality, and research prospects

Seafood products have been one of the main drivers behind the popularity of high-pressure processing (HPP) in the food industry owing to a high demand for fresh ready-to-eat seafood products and food safety. This review provides an overview of the advanced knowledge available on the use of HPP for production of wholesome and highly nutritive clean label fish and shellfish products. Out of 653 explored items, 65 articles published during 2016-2021 were used. Analysis of the literature showed that most of the earlier work evaluated the HPP effect on physicochemical and sensorial properties, and limited information is available on nutritional aspects. HPP has several applications in the seafood industry. Application of HPP (400-600 MPa) eliminates common seafood pathogens, such as Vibrio and Listeria spp., and slows the growth of spoilage microorganisms. Use of cold water as a pressure medium induces minimal changes in sensory and nutritional properties and helps in the development of clean label seafood products. This technology (200-350 MPa) is also useful to shuck oysters, lobsters, crabs, mussels, clams, and scallops to increase recovery of the edible meat. High-pressure helps to preserve organoleptic and functional properties for an extended time during refrigerated storage. Overall, HPP helps seafood manufacturers to maintain a balance between safety, quality, processing efficiency, and regulatory compliance. Further research is required to understand the mechanisms of pressure-induced modifications and clean label strategies to minimize these modifications.

Different sequence of high-hydrostatic pressure and mild-heat treatment on the colour and sensory characteristics of strawberry puree

The effect of high pressure processing (300 and 600 MPa) combined with mild heat treatment (55 and 75 °C) on the colour parameters, anthocyanin content, and sensory characteristics of strawberry puree were examined after the treatments and 2 weeks of cold storage at 2 and 15 °C. As on an industrial scale the simultaneous implementation of these treatments remains a challenge, the HHP and heat treatments were carried out consecutively in different sequences. The colour parameters and the anthocyanin content did not change significantly due to the treatments, but decreased during cold storage, at 15 °C storage the changes were more intensive than at 2 °C. Regarding the sensory test results, the different sequence of the 600 MPa-75 °C combined treatments is not detectable even after 2 weeks of storage at 15 °C, but in case of 300 MPa-55 °C, the enzyme inactivation is probably not sufficient enough as differences between the samples were detected.