High hydrostatic pressure treatment as an alternative to pasteurization to maintain bioactive compound content and texture in red sweet pepper

• High pressure treatment at 500 MPa could provide an alternative to pasteurization
• New functional foods could be developed using HHP-treated red peppers at 500 MPa
• The lower impact on bioactive compound content is obtained using higher pressures
• High pressure and pasteurization cause structural changes in pepper tissue

Red sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum) are an excellent source of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds. High hydrostatic pressures (HHP) not only increase shelf-life but also maintain nutritional and organoleptic properties better in a number of food products. The aim of this work was to measure the effect of HHP and a thermal treatment, pasteurization (PA) in a water bath at 70 °C for 10 min, on some bioactive compounds (fibre, carotenoids and antioxidant activity) and on the texture (TPA; firmness and shear force) of red Lamuyo-type sweet peppers, in order to discover the relationship between treatment (HHP and PA), tissue microstructure and bioactive compound extractability. The results show that HHP at 500 MPa and PA treatments had less impact on the microstructure, bioactive compound content (fibre and antioxidant activity) and texture of red sweet peppers, than when low pressures were used. Consequently, new functional foods could be developed using red sweet pepper tissues treated with high pressures (500 MPa) and/or PA.Industrial relevanceToday’s consumers demand foods that are rich in bioactive compounds with beneficial health effects and safer, more natural, minimally-processed food products. Red sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum) are an excellent source of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds such as carotenoids and fibre. High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) processing is considered one of the most economically viable of the non-thermal technologies that helps to preserve red sweet peppers with high nutritional and quality parameters. Therefore, it would be interesting to study the microstructure of HHP-treated red sweet pepper tissues in order to discover whether this treatment promotes the extractability of bioactive compounds, and to compare the results with those obtained by pasteurizing the red sweet pepper. Thus, these enhanced red sweet peppers could be used as ingredients in the formulation of new functional foods.