ABSTRACT
The trend of consuming fresh fruits and vegetables has been continuously increasing all over the globe. Enzymes cause an endogenous deteriorative reaction along with other microbial growth which decreases the shelf-life of horticultural produce. Industries have encountered these challenges using the conventional heat treatment processes to inactivate enzymes; however, these thermal processing techniques cause undesirable changes in sensory parameters and a reduction of food nutritional profile. Nearly 20 years the industries and academia were in quest of alternative techniques to solve these issues; thus, the nonthermal techniques emerged with minimal use of heat and preservatives . Nonthermal technologies have helped in quality retention and shelf-life enhancement of the produces by eliminating the enzymatic effects. This chapter emphasizes on effectiveness of cold plasma and hybrid processing technologies for inactivation of food enzymes that can degrade the food quality.
