Effects of supercritical CO2 and N2O pasteurization on the quality of fresh apple juice

Supercritical pasteurisation is receiving increasing attention as an alternative technology for foodstuff pasteurisation, but often the possible effects on the perceptible quality are not sufficiently considered. To address this latter issue, besides standard microbial analysis, we here investigate the impact of CO2/N2O supercritical pasteurisation (100 bar, 36 C and 10 min treatment time) on the quality traits of fresh apple juice, linked to consumer perception. Discriminative sensory analysis (triangle test) and basic chemical characterization (total solids, sugars, organic acids, polyphenols) could not clearly demonstrate any induced modification of the treated juice, while head space analysis of volatile compounds (both by GC–MS and PTR–MS) indicated a general depletion of the volatile compounds that must be considered in the development of a stabilization method based on supercritical gases.