Natural antimicrobials as additional hurdles to preservation of foods by high pressure processing

• HPP is promising non-thermal preservation technique due to assure total food quality and safety.
• Intense HPP processing may conduct to noticeable appearance modification in food product.
• The application of natural antimicrobials as preservatives in processed food represents an emerging trend.
• HPP may be applied in combination to natural antimicrobials acting as complementary hurdles.
• Mild combined HPP is feasible alternative assuring quality, safety and economical advantages.

Although clear benefits of high pressure processing (HPP) as a non-thermal preservation method have been already established, recent literature has highlighted a promising trend of the combined HPP application plus antimicrobials obtained from natural sources. As a major improvements has been pointed out that effective inactivation rates may be reached at mild HPP set ups, assuring reduced costs at initial equipment installation (less robust units and valves) and upkeep, and maximizing processing output by effective shortened cycles (higher productivity in cycles/per hour). Less intense HPP cycles in pressure/dwell times results in increased freshness and global quality of HPP processed food.