Thermal processing of food: Challenges, innovations and opportunities. A position paper

ABSTRACT

Thermal processing is still the most important method to ensure food safety, however, there is a need for further improvements, from basic data to advanced optimization methods. Due to the competitive market, customer demands and environmental concerns, several challenges have been raised. In this review, some important topics are discussed, including inactivation kinetics, engineering properties, process design and control, packaging systems and regulatory, environmental, and economic aspects. This position paper describes our opinion about the main challenges associated with thermal processing (conventional and alternative technologies, as microwave and ohmic heating), as well as some possibilities to deal with them.

KEYWORDS:

• Food processing
• thermal process
• heat process
• microwave
• ohmic heating

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil) for funding the Post-Doctoral grant of MTK Kubo (155725/2018–1) and the productivity grants of PED Augusto (306557/2017–7 and 310839/2020–3). Moreover, the following professionals provided excellent discussions with the authors, being kindly acknowledged: Prof. Dr. h.c. Huub Lelieveld (The Global Harmonization Initiative – GHI, Austria) and Dr. Maria Isabel Berto (Food Technology Institute, ITAL, Brazil).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil) under Grant [number 155725/2018–1], Grant [number 306557/2017–7] and Grant [number 310839/2020–3];CNPQ [155725/2018–1,306557/2017-7,310839/2020–3];

Notes on contributors

Mirian T. K. Kubo

Mirian T. K. Kubo (Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing)

Adina Baicu

Adina Baicu (Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation); Ferruh Erdogdu (Software, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing, Visualization)

Ferruh Erdogdu

Maria Fátima Poças (Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing)

Maria Fátima Poças

Cristina L. M. Silva (Conceptualization, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing)

Cristina L. M. Silva

Ricardo Simpson (Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation)

Ricardo Simpson

Alfredo A. Vitali (Investigation, Writing – original draft preparation)

Alfredo A. Vitali

Pedro E. D. Augusto (Conceptualization, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing, Visualization, Project administration)

Pedro E. D. Augusto

Ferruh Erdogdu (Software, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing, Visualization)