Recent Advances in Non-thermal Food Processing Technologies and Physicochemical Aspects

Dear Colleagues,

As we approach the middle of the 21st century, consumers are still desperately seeking fresh, unprocessed, healthy, and high-quality food products for consumption. Additional constraints such as maintaining the sustainability of the products, reducing food loss and waste, using less energy for green technologies in the context of adverse climate change effects, and ensuring minimal food miles and maintaining a low environmental footprint are obstacles that food science, technology, and engineering have to address quickly. In this respect, advances in non-thermal food processing technologies have enabled rapid commercialization, and the global non-thermal market is expected to reach USD 3.9 billion by 2026. The adoption of more non-thermal innovative food processing technologies that not only retain food quality but also extend shelf-life with new formulations will boost the growth of the global market. However, non-thermal processing may have both positive and negative effects on the final quality of food products, depending on the process parameters selected.

Although non-thermal processes aim for minimal changes to foods, changes in physicochemical properties are unavoidable. Structural changes, enhanced chemical reactions, and degradation of nutrients occur as a result of the applied processes. Among the non-thermal technologies, HHP primarily does not affect the covalent bonds of food components up to 1000 MPA, thus maintaining the original sensorial properties by large. Recently, a shift in HHP-produced commercial food products has been seen, where HHP affects the noncovalent bonds (i.e., hydrogen bonds and hydrophobicity and van der Waals forces), and changes in chemical properties may take place.

Therefore, the present Special Issue is aimed at covering improvements to overcome and consider research gaps such as i) the inactivation of relatively resistant foodborne pathogens and microorganisms without affecting quality and sensory parameters; ii) stability from production until consumption; iii) sustainability and life-cycle assessment; iv) food safety and food quality and v) investigation of the physical and chemical changes observed as a result of different processing techniques.

Original full research articles as well as review articles on these and related topics from research groups all over the world are welcome, with the aim of disseminating recent developments in scientific knowledge.

Prof. Dr. Hami Alpas
Dr. Mecit H. Oztop
Guest Editors

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