Understanding of the phenomena involved in the inactivation of bacterial spores by a process combining high pressure and heat treatment

2022

High Pressure Processing (HPP) is an established food processing technique for maintaining food quality while inactivating vegetative forms of pathogenic and spoilage bacteria. However, bacterial spores are very resistant to pressure, which requires the development of a strategy combining HPP with another modality (pressure cycling, heat treatment) to increase spore destruction. Currently, the combination of these processes are not implemented at an industrial scale due to the technically complex implementation and uncertain results given the diverse and contradictory literature on the level and mechanisms of spore inactivation by HP. The elucidation of spore inactivation mechanisms by pres…