Study: New technology Could Increase Juice Safety

A combination of sonication and osmotic evaporation represents a promising new technology that could be designed to athermally produce safe, concentrated fruit juices, claims a new study.

The results derived from the research were published in the Journal of Food Safety and indicate that combining sonication with osmotic pressure during storage of concentrated orange juice provides a way of achieving a 5 log reduction of Salmonella spp.

The authors have termed the technology designed to athermally process fruit juices as “osmosonication,” and claim that besides the nutritional and sensory benefits provided by athermal processes, final products would also be safe for the consumer.

Consumers are increasingly seeking natural products that have been minimally processed in order to avoid destruction or partial removal of the health promoting substances present in fruits, according to the study.

However, the authors state that consumption of minimally processed fruit juices has increased the number of outbreaks of foodborne illnesses in recent years, with orange juice frequently identified as the vehicle of transmission in several of these outbreaks, many of them related to Salmonella species.

The authors said the aim of their research was to evaluate the effect of osmotic pressure alone, or combined with the application of sonication, on the reduction of Salmonella spp. in concentrated orange juice.

Source: FoodProductionDaily.com