Thermal Processing

Thermal Processing
Thermal processing involves heating foods in hermetically sealed containers for a specific time at a specific temperature to eliminate the microbial pathogens that endanger public health and microorganism. And enzymes that deteriorate food during storage.

Credit for the inventions of thermal processing (or canning, as it was originally called) goes to Nicholas Appert, a French confectioner.

The original concept of in container sterilization of foods, however, has come a long way since Appert first introduced “the art of caning” in 1810.

As introduced and developed in the initial stages, the primary focus of caning was safety and shelf stability.

Today, however the consumer demands much more than just safe and shelf-stable food - including, primarily, higher quality food with greater convenience in the end use.

And food processors look for more energy-efficient, cost effective and high speed processing technologies.

High temperature short time (HTST) techniques have primarily evolved to minimize the severity of heat treatment and promote product quality.

Continues aseptic processing and packaging further minimize the heat severity by quick heating and cooling of the food, prior to packaging under aseptic conditions.

This profile, thermostable, microwavable packages have been developed for promoting faster heat transfer rates, which minimizes the heat damage to products quality while adding the convenience of package microwavability.

Rotary and continues cookers for canned foods have been based on product agitation during processing to accelerate the rate of heat transfer in order to promote better quality in processed foods.

Microwave, radio frequency, and ohmic heating techniques have gained attention as alternate and nonconventional rapid heating techniques.

However although different procedure can be employed for thermal processing, it is necessary to design a process that would deliver the required minimum heat treatment to render the food safe.
Thermal Processing