The Science
UV-C: An interesting technology to preserve quality and safety of milk and dairy foods
Relevance of UV-C for milk and dairy processing is presented.
Quality of dairy foods submitted to UV-C
Limitations and Advantages are elucidated.
Thermal processing is the most common decontamination method used in the dairy industry to ensure food safety and extend shelf life. However, due to the increased consumer demand for more natural and healthier products, non-thermal technologies have been intensively studied. Introduction of shortwave ultraviolet light (UV-C) offers some technological advantages due to its low maintenance and installation costs, minimal energy use, and food preservation without some undesirable effects of heat treatments. Scope and approach: This review aims to describe the theoretical fundamentals of UV-C and approaching the critical processing factors involved. Also, it describes the mechanisms of microbial inactivation and provides an overview of the effects on dairy product quality, considering microbiological, physicochemical and sensory aspects.
Key findings and conclusions
UV-C radiation can be considered an effective method for inactivating pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms in milk and dairy products by forming lesions in DNA and/or damage in the cellular enzyme activity and cytoplasmatic membrane integrity. The efficiency of the process is dependent on the process parameters (time of exposure, UV dose, wavelength and UV light source), product type (chemical composition, viscosity, turbidity, opacity and roughness), equipment (conformation and geometry), and microorganism characteristics (specie, strain, initial count, growth phase, and recovery conditions). When optimum conditions are applied, there is no impact on the physicochemical, nutritional and sensory aspects. In conclusion, UV-C can be considered an environmental-friendly emergent non-thermal technology for decontamination of dairy products, presenting low costs and efficiency in the maintenance of the quality parameters of dairy products.
Introduction:
Food safety is an extremely important issue for the food industries and food services due to the foodborne illness caused by the ingestion of etiological agents. According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2015), it is estimated that 600 million people - almost 1 in 10 people worldwide - fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420,000 die every year. Dairy products can be important sources of foodborne disease-causing pathogens as these products provide suitable conditions for the development of a variety of microorganisms, once they are rich in nutrients including carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, essential amino acids, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals (Oliver, Jayarao, & Almeida, 2005).
Thus, the manufacture of quality products that do not pose risks to consumer health is a great challenge in the food sector. This challenge is even greater for the dairy industry as contamination of dairy products can occur at various production stages, from a wide variety of sources. Therefore, dairy production requires strict quality control to reduce the risk of foodborne diseases (Koca, Urgu, & Saatli, 2018, chap. 1).
Thermal processing is a technique traditionally used in the dairy industry to ensure safety and extend the commercial shelf life of foods by eliminating spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms as well as promoting inactivation of enzymes (Koca et al., 2018, chap. 1). Although efficient, heat treatments can negatively affect food through changes in sensory properties such as color, texture, and flavor (Barba, Esteve, & Frígola, 2012). In addition, it may result in loss of nutritional composition, such as reduction of some bioactive compounds, induction of enzymatic inactivation, loss of vitamins, lipid oxidation, and protein denaturation, resulting in poor quality foods (Choudhary & Bandla, 2012; Moreno-Vilet, Hernández-Hernández, & Villanueva-Rodríguez, 2018). Another disadvantage is that thermal processing requires high energy consumption, which can compromise the final value of the product to ensure industry profitability (Barba, Koubaa, Prado-Silva, Orlien, & Sant'Ana, 2017).
In this context, innovative food processing technologies applied to food preservation without the undesirable effects of heat treatments have gained considerable public interest (Lopez-Malo & Palou, 2005; Barba et al., 2012; Mahendran et al., 2019). Innovative food processing technologies are defined as new technologies that have been currently used or will be developed in the next years and can alter the social environment and the business (Misra et al., 2017). These new food processing technologies are advantageous once they can contribute to a significant reduction in processing time when compared to conventional treatments, resulting in lower energy costs and food safety, with benefits for the industry (Misra et al., 2017).
Innovative food processing technologies include several thermal and non-thermal processes that have been developed to ensure product safety, quality, and acceptability (Priyadarshini, Rajauria, O'Donnell, & Tiwari, 2019). Innovative non-thermal food processing technologies have been widely developed in Europe and United States of America, increasing the interest in their utilization in Latin America, especially in Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia (Hernández-Hernández, Moreno-Vilet, & Villanueva-Rodríguez, 2019). They are excellent alternatives to the conventional heat treatments, as they can avoid contamination of food products, causing minimal damage to the matrix and maintaining the physicochemical, nutritional, and sensory characteristics of the products (Amaral et al., 2017; Birmpa, Sfika, & Vantarakis, 2013; Hernández-Hernández et al., 2019). Innovative food processing technologies include cold plasma (Coutinho et al., 2018), ohmic heating (Cappato et al., 2017), high hydrostatic pressure (Barba et al., 2012), pulsed electric field (Cruz et al., 2010), and ultrasound (Ashokkumar et al., 2010; Guimarães et al., 2019).
Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has also stood out as one of the most promising innovative food processing technology with great commercialization potential (Jermann, Koutchma, Margas, Leadley, & Ros-Polski, 2015; Koutchma, 2009; Morales-de-la Peña, Welti-Chanes & Martín- Belloso, 2019). In a survey with North American and European respondents (industry professionals, government, and academics), it was identified that UV radiation was considered the third and fourth technology with higher commercial application or emerged in food production, respectively. Furthermore, the products treated by innovative food processing technologies, such as UV, were recognized as of higher quality (94%), safer (92%), and with increased shelf life (91%, Jermann et al., 2015). FDAFew studies have shown the effectiveness of UV radiation on microbiological safety and the intrinsic quality parameters of dairy products. Therefore, this review aimed to describe the fundamentals and the main factors and parameters required for the application of this technology in milk and dairy products. In addition, the microbial inactivation mechanisms and the effects on dairy quality were discussed, considering the physicochemical, sensory, and microbial characteristics of the products.
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Fundamentals and process parameters
UV-C is a non-ionizing form of invisible light, situated in the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM) between visible light and X-rays (NASA, 2019). Ultraviolet light comprises the wavelength range between 100 and 400 nm, which produces four main types of UV rays: UVA (315–400 nm), UVB (280–315 nm), UVC (200–280 nm), and vacuum-UV (100–200 nm) (Fig. 1). UV-C rays are described as germicides because they have the most effective lethal effect on different microorganisms
UV-C and dairy quality
The physicochemical and sensory characteristics of milk and dairy products are extremely important for quality assurance and preservation, which are affected by some factors including the type of treatment and the intensity applied during processing. Food preservation methods should allow the inactivation of pathogens and spoilage microorganisms without causing significant changes, thus maintaining the nutritional and sensory properties of the products (Raso & Barbosa-Cánovas, 2003).
The Quality:
Advantages, disadvantages, and limitations of ultraviolet radiation
Although UV-C has proven to be an interesting technology for food processing, it has advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages, disadvantages, and limitations of UV treatment for food preservation are described in Table 4, and the advantages are schematic presented in Fig. 4.
As an innovative food processing technology, UV-C offers multiple advantages over conventional processing, such as the effective inactivation of a wide range of pathogenic and spoilage
Perspectives:
The growing global demand and consumption of milk and dairy products have drawn the attention of the food industry to the potential of innovative food processing technologies as new conservation methods. To minimize the risk of foodborne diseases associated with dairy products, new technologies have been studied to ensure microbiological safety and extend the shelf life of the products, with minimal deleterious processing effects. Thus, the UV treatment may be an interesting approach, as there
Acknowledgements:
The authors acknowledge Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) for financial support (Grants #2015/25641-4 and #2017/03899-5), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Grants #403865/2013-1, #302763/2014-7 and #305804/2017-0). This study was financed, in part, by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001, Fundação de Apoio a Pesquisa no Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) and Instituto Federal de
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Show abstract:
Non-thermal Technologies for Food Processing
2021, Frontiers in Nutrition:
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Elsevier
Trends in Food Science & Technology
Volume 102, August 2020, Pages 146-154
Trends in Food Science & Technology
-UV-C An interesting technology to preserve quality and safety of foods
Mariana M. Delorme a
, Jonas T. Guimarães a,
Nathália M. Coutinho a
, Celso F. Balthazar a, Ramon S. Rocha a b, Ramon Silva a b,
Larissa P. Margalho c
, Tatiana C. Pimentel d, Marcia C. Silva b, Monica Q. Freitas a, Daniel Granato e, Anderson S. Sant’Ana c,
Maria Carmela K.H. Duart a
, Adriano G. Cruz b
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