Hyperbaric storage preservation at room temperature using an industrial-scale equipment: Case of two commercial ready-to-eat pre-cooked foods

• First study about HS on ready-to-eat products and on their fatty acids content
• Saturated fatty acids increase after 3 days in refrigeration after HS at 100 MPa.
• Preservation for 12 h by HS at ~ 21 °C is as efficient as refrigeration or more
• Microorganisms were inhibited (50, 100 MPa) or inactivated (150 MPa) during HS.
• HS allowed microbial growth inhibition at naturally variable room temperature.

Hyperbaric storage (HS) at room temperature is a new approach for food preservation. It was studied for the first time, here, for two ready-to-eat (RTE) pre-cooked food commercial products and using an industrial-scale pressure equipment. Caldo verde and Bacalhau com natas were stored for 12 h at 0.1, 50, 100 and 150 MPa, at uncontrolled naturally variable room temperature (~ 21 °C). The results showed that HS caused microbial growth inhibition at 100 MPa for all the studied microorganisms. Moreover, an additional inactivation effect at 150 MPa resulted in values below the detection limit for Enterobacteriaceae and yeasts and moulds, resulting in equal to better results when compared to refrigeration. Regardless of HS conditions no changes were verified in physico-chemical parameters when compared to refrigeration storage. Therefore, HS has the potential to substitute refrigeration as a quasi-energetically costless and carbon foot-printless preservation methodology.Industrial relevanceHyperbaric storage (HS) is a very promising technique for microbial proliferation inhibition at room-like temperatures, allowing natural temperature fluctuations. HS has several advantages when compared to refrigeration namely, it is nearly energetically costless (it only requires energy costs during compression to reach the required pressure level and virtually no additional energy is necessary to maintain the product under pressure along the storage), and so it is also basically carbon foot-printeless. This is the first work to study HS of two commercial highly perishable ready-to-eat food products at room temperature conditions and to assess its effect on fatty acid content, using an industrial high pressure equipment.