ABSTRACT
Cereals and cereal products are widely consumed around the world in various forms. One of the major hurdles in these commodities arises during their storage where they are infested with rodents, insects, and microbial infestations, which leads to the formation of various toxic contaminants. This scenario generally leads to a huge loss of raw material initially along with the degeneration of product quality. Various physical, chemical, and biological practices have been adopted to overcome this problem, out of which ozonation is gaining popularity, as being the safer tool for the management of these post-harvest quality losses. This non-thermal method has emerged as a better approach as compared to chemical fumigation methods, which may directly influence food quality. Ozone is easily generated by either the corona discharge (CD) method or ultraviolet method (UV) on site as it cannot be stored like other gases due to its volatile nature. It is generally recognized as a safe anti-microbial agent by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA, 2001) and can be applied in the gaseous or aqueous state for direct contact with all foods, and recently approved by the French Food Safety Agency for grain treatment. Treatment with ozone significantly impacts microbial inactivation and also influences the nutritional, rheological, and functional properties of the grains as well as their products. Further, being eco-friendly it does not leave any chemical residues after being treated. A few limitations such as high generation cost, underdeveloped process parameters for exact dosage and time combination need to be studied in the future. Thus, ozonation has a great potential in not only improving the overall quality and shelf life of grain products but also allowing food safety for the development of safer, healthier, and nutritious high-quality products for future times.
