Technologies That Support Strengthen Food Safety

The food processing industry uses new technologies to improve food safety and reduce foodborne illnesses.

FREMONT, CA: High-profile outbreaks of foodborne infection associated with ready-to-eat (RTE) foods and peanut butter contamination by using an unusual Salmonella pressure have revived collaborative efforts by industry regulators and researchers to improve food protection strategies and technology for effectively enforcing all through the food deliver chain.

The advancement of microbial intervention technologies that decrease, control, or eliminate foodborne pathogens from food products and contact surfaces is one of the essential elements of developing this farm-to-fork food safety framework. As the food safety stakeholders comprehend, there is no "silver bullet" technology that can remove contaminants from the food chain. Yet, in the last few years, considerable progress has been made in enhancing existing intervention methods and identifying innovative microbial inactivation technologies.

Intervention technologies like thermal, non-thermal, or chemical are developed to provide a microbiological population with substantial inactivation or inhibition. They can be used as a crucial step to encourage or ensure food safety. FSIT performs vital and applied research in food chemistry, microbiology, food irradiation, food technology, and engineering to support regulatory needs and enhance the security of meat, poultry, fresh fruits, vegetables, sprouts, and juices while maintaining the required quality attributes.

Numerous current FSIT research investigations into the efficiency of food safety intervention technologies demonstrate the new potential for applying and developing non-thermal and innovative thermal processes in food processing facilities. Here are some handy tools for the food processor to improve food safety.

Hot Intervention Technology

Food manufacturers have customarily used thermal processing technology in or on food products to inactivate or decrease microbial populations. The 'heat and destroy' sterilization systems use high-temperature, short-time pasteurization, and ultra-high temperature (UHT) processing to process liquid foods and retort canning for processed solid foods.

Microwave and RFEF(Radio Frequency Electric Field) Processing.

Electromagnetic waves of particular frequencies to produce heat in a material are mentioned as microwave and radiofrequency electric field heating. Microwave & radiofrequency heating for pasteurization and sterilization might be advantageous for traditional heating processes. Increasing the necessary process temperature in microwave processing consumes less time, especially for solid and semi-solid foods.

Ohmic Heating.

Ohmic heating is an inventive thermal processing system through which electrical currents are transmitted through foods to raise the temperature for cooking or sterilization rapidly. Its key advantage is its capability to heat liquid products containing large particles quickly and consistently, like soups, stews, canned fruit in syrup, runny eggs, and juice products.