ABSTRACT
Changes in consumer’s desires in the recent past have led to the requirement for more convenient foods having supreme qualities and freshness, minimally processed and packaged, easy-to-consume, and nutritionally healthier. Hence, the focus of food scientists and engineers has been directed towards alternative technologies or minimal processing and preservation technologies that are environmentally friendly, low in cost, and able to preserve fresh quality attributes of the food. Many novel non-thermal technologies like high-pressure processing (HPP), pulsed light (PL), ultrasound, irradiation, etc. find application in preservation of food and are in the line of commercialization. A major trend was to employ these techniques in newer combinations that effectively do preservation rather exploiting a single technique to a maximum, commonly called “Hurdle Technology” (Leistner, 1995). In contrast to the existing technologies, new method of preservation aims at inactivation of microorganisms rather than inhibiting them. Another field of application is in the development of new and improved products by functional modification of the food macromolecules that help the processor to have outstanding quality, with reduced cost, time, and energy. The new technologies now introduce more possibilities in non-thermal or mild heat alternatives to the conventional heat processing (Gould, 2000).
