Novel Processing Technology for Shelf Life Extension in Food
A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Engineering and Technology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 12043
Special Issue Editors
Interests: drying, especially freeze-drying; chemical and physical changes in dried material during storage; food texture; biotechnological processes in bioreactors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: drying; food texture; acoustic emission; sorption properties
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The development of food and nutrition sciences and the simultaneous progress in the production of modern processing equipment have resulted in a completely different approach to the shelf life of food. For many years, investigations on food shelf life focused on microbiological stability. Methods of thermal preservation of food were developed, from classical pasteurization and sterilization to methods using high temperature and very short time (HTST, UHT) to modern methods using unconventional thermal methods, such as ohmic and microwave heating. In recent years, new methods have emerged for the development of thermal methods. These include aseptic packaging, as well as non-thermal methods such as cold pasteurization using membrane processes at the microfiltration level which have been implemented in industrial practice. Preservation methods using cold plasma have also attracted attention recently, and the popularity of minimally processed food has resulted in the development of hybrid methods which can help to extend the shelf life of foods. The development of the packaging sector (e.g., modified/controlled atmosphere, active and intelligent packaging) has resulted in extending the shelf life of foods, including fresh, minimally processed products. Another area of development is ready-made products that can be eaten immediately after heating, e.g., the “cook and chill” and “cook and freeze” methods, which when combined with modern packaging methods allow maintaining quality longer than perishable products. A modern approach to food processing methods also involves the development of food safety and quality management methods through the GMP, GHP, and HCCP methods, as well as other, more advanced quality assurance methods. Food should be stable, but it should also maintain an appropriate level of biologically active compounds, which are often sensitive to environmental conditions and degrade due to the effect of the temperature of oxygen, light, water, and the presence of other food ingredients. The application of processes which enable protecting a wide range of bioactive compounds and their stability during storage is a crucial factor in extending the shelf life of food products. To sum up, a novel approach to the issue of food shelf life for a sufficiently long period is a multi-pronged issue, covering many research directions, and this is an aspect that we want to showcase in this Special Issue, which covers the following issues:
- Unconventional methods of food preservation;
- Membrane processes in food preservation;
- Stabilization of biologically active compounds in food;
- Quality management methods;
- Packaging methods;
- Minimally processing processes;
- “Cook and chill” and “cook and freeze” methods.
Dr. Dorota Nowak
Dr. Ewa Jakubczyk
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- high-pressure processing
- membrane technology
- microencapsulation
- food irradiation
- pulsed light
- pulsed electric field
- unit operation
- cold plasma
- controlled atmospheric storage
- edible coating
