ABSTRACT
High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) treatment is one of the conventional techniques practiced in ceramics technology for development of electronic components having specific properties. Investigations on the applications of HHP for food processing started a century ago. Early investigations started with the work of Hite in 1899, followed by that of Cress in 1924 on high pressure processing (HPP) of fruits and vegetables. Later, its effectiveness on other foods was demonstrated. These included reduction of bacterial counts in milk, extension of keeping quality of meat up to 3 weeks, and coagulation of egg albumin. Serious attempts to apply HPP to food preservation were initiated in the 1980s by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries in collaboration with several food industries. Close to this development, the European Union initiated a collaborative program for development of machinery for the processing. HPP treatment has been shown to produce shelf-stable foods with a pH of 4.2 or lower and extended shelf life of refrigerated foods. In the early 1990s high-pressure-processed fruit jams and grapefruit juice appeared in the Japanese market, representing commercial application of the process. High pressure has potential applications in other food commodities also, which include improvement of tenderness of prerigor beef muscle, removal of bitterness in orange juice, selective removal of β-lactoglobulin from whey concentrates, and acceleration of bovine milk curdling by rennet.
