High hydrostatic pressure applications on liquid whole egg

SUMMARY

High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) treatment at the pressure and temperature range of 300–450 MPa and 0–50°C for up to 30 min can be used successfully to inactivate several bacteria in liquid whole egg (LWE). On the other hand, to avoid egg protein coagulation, pressure levels ≤ 300 MPa and temperature levels ≤ 20°C should be selected and holding times ≤ 5 min are desirable for commercial HHP application. However, these conditions are not suitable for pasteurising LWE. Therefore, antimicrobial agents such as nisin, in combination with HHP or successive use of HHP with heat or other non-thermal methods such as pulsed electric field or ultrasound have been tried for maximum microbial inactivation with minimum changes in physical, chemical and functional properties of LWE. This review compiles the studies on HHP and LWE. While microbial inactivation by HHP and inactivation kinetics is the main focus, the impact of HHP on functional properties of LWE is also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• High pressure
• microbial inactivation
• protein coagulation
• egg
• non-thermal treatments

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sencer Buzrul

Sencer Buzrul is Professor of Food Engineering at the Department of Food Engineering, Konya Food and Agriculture University, Turkey. He obtained a Food Engineering degree, M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Food Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Turkey, and also Ph.D. in Process Engineering from University of Bordeaux, France. His current research areas are predictive microbiology and non-thermal processing of foods.