Impact evaluation of high pressure treatment on foods: considerations on the development of pressure-temperature-time integrators (pTTIs)

This review discusses the current approach and status of the methodologies used to evaluate the effect of high pressure pasteurization and sterilization on food safety and quality aspects. As a starting point, it was investigated whether the existing approaches for process impact evaluation of conventional thermal pasteurization and sterilization are transferable to assessment of high pressure high temperature (HPHT) process impact and what the points of particular attention are. The need for pressure-temperature-time indicators (pTTIs) is illustrated and some candidate systems (physical and biological) are proposed and evaluated with regard to their application as pTTIs.