ABSTRACT
In the last two decades high-voltage pulsed electric fi elds (PEF) technology has gradually evolved from a novel, research-based system to one of the three major ‘non-thermal candidates’ for food processing, only surpassed by high hydrostatic pressure and in part irradiation treatments. Similar to other non-thermal techniques PEF enables treatment of food and biomaterials at sub-pasteurization conditions, as refl ected by shorter treatment times, lower processing temperatures or both, thereby, allowing production of microbiologically safe and shelf-stable products of higher nutritional and sensory quality than conventional heat pasteurization. At present the fi elds of application for PEF in food production and research mainly focus on the preservation for pumpable liquids (Pina-Perez et al. 2009a, Altuntas et al. 2011, Chen et al. 2013) as well as for dehydration (Gachovska et al. 2009, Donsi et al. 2010, Wiktor et al. 2013) and extraction of solids (Grimi
1 Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety, Department of Food Science, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph, 43 McGilvray Street, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 Canada.
