Application of Thermal Kinetic Models in Liquid Foods and Beverages with Reference to Ascorbic Acid, Anthocyanin and Furan – a Review

Food processors aim to preserve as much as desirable quality attributes without compromising food safety. Thermal processing is the cheapest and most common method of food preservation across the world due to its outstanding record of assuring safety. The major challenge associated with the conventional heating method is to protect adequately desirable quality attributes like color, flavor, texture, nutrients and bioactive compounds to address the demands of modern health conscious consumers. One approach is to use kinetic models and adopt the principle of optimization. Reaction kinetic models can be used in process design to estimate quantitative impact on food components including microorganisms in foods. There are various types of linear and nonlinear kinetic models proposed by food engineers. However, the selection of appropriate process variables (time, temperature), knowledge on the product factors (e.g. pH, oBrix) and understanding their interactions with the model parameters (rate constant, activation energy) is important for accurately estimating the impact of the process. The purpose of this review is to summarize the principles and functions of thermal processing followed by the application of reaction kinetic models to estimate the impact of thermal process on the food components, namely microbial population, ascorbic acid, anthocyanin and furan in liquid foods and beverages. In addition, it illustrates how the model parameters can be used to optimize the process through time-temperature tolerance (TTT) curve. Furthermore, it explains the significance of high temperature short time process for selected food components.