Processing of Fruits and Fruit Juices by Novel Electrotechnologies

Recent demands from consumers for fresh-like quality foods with less and/or no artificial additives have introduced innovative processing technologies. These technologies due to their potential for food processing with preservation of important properties may cause to introduce new products in the market, to improve the competitiveness of the food, to eliminate the use of some artificial food additives, and to reduce energy cost. Pulsed electric fields for microbial and enzyme inactivation, shelf-life extension, moderate electric fields for yield and extraction, and ohmic heating are among these novel technologies that are based on the application of electric current on food materials. It has been well established that these technologies can successfully be applied to different food products. Among all, fruit juices have special importance due to the suitability of their physical properties to be processed by the electrotechnologies. This article covers the fundamentals of these technologies, their current use, research activities, and trends.