Pulsed light as an emerging technology to cause disruption for food and adjacent industries – Quo Vadis?

Publication date: Available online 22 March 2019Source: Trends in Food Science & TechnologyAuthor(s): Neil J. RowanAbstractBackgroundDespite verbose amount of publications and having gained approval by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 1996 for food-surface disinfection applications, pulsed light (PL) still has not been used on a large scale by industry. Fresh produce remains a leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks where there is a pressing need for an effective post-harvest decontamination intervention such as PL that can replace or supplement post-harvest washing.Scope and approachThis review describes current status of PL for non-thermal food-surface treatments. It addresses rationale and efficacy of methods used to assess PL disinfection performance along with addressing inter-related factors that are limiting PL development for these opportunities.Key findings and conclusions. PL is a promising non-thermal technology for food-surface disinfection. Lack of international harmonisation and consensus on what constitutes priority experimental methods and exposure conditions is hampering commercial development of PL. Previously, many studies have reported on PL-food treatments using a cumulative energy dose or range of UV doses above the FDA recommended 12 J cm-2. Consensus on the choice and relevance of indirect cell and molecular methods to assess injury in PL-treated microorganisms has yet to be reached. This review provides recommendations in reporting experi...
Source: Trends in Food Science and Technology - Category: Food Science Source Type: research