Supercritical CO2 Pasteurization of Solid Products: a Case Study on Fresh-cut Potatoes

During the last decades, supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) pasteurization has been intensively studied as a potential technology to increase the safety and shelf-life of fresh food. However, the high risk of post-process contamination still represents a barrier to its industrialization. This study reports a proof of concept study in order to demonstrate the applicability of a novel method that combines scCO2 and Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) for fresh-cut potatoes. The process was investigated by a full-factorial design of experiment, studying the effect of temperature (35 - 45 °C), pressure (8 – 12 MPa), and treatment time (5 – 35 min) on the microbial inactivation of E. coli and the color of the processed product. The method was able to reduce up to 1.50 Log CFU/g the load of inoculated E. coli at 45°C, 8.0 MPa and 35 min, without excessively modifying the product color. Moreover, the color did not significantly change during storage at 4 °C for 7 days.