The food-processing industry has made large investments in processing facilities relying mostly on conventional thermal processing technologies with well-established reliability and efficacy. Replacing them with one of the novel alternatives recently developed is a decision that must be carefully approached. Among them, high-pressure processing (HPP), at room or refrigerated temperature, is now a wellestablished option experiencing worldwide commercial growth. Surveys have shown an excellent consumer acceptance of HPP technology. For financial feasibility reasons, HPP treatments must be kept short, a challenge that can be met by some of the alternatives here reviewed such as the use of the hurdle technology concept. Although HPP technology is limited to pasteurization treatments, the combination of high pressure and high temperature used in pressureassisted thermal processing (PATP) can be used to sterilize foods. An analysis of alternatives to achieve the inactivation of bacterial spores at the lowest temperature possible highlights the need for additional research on the use of germinants. Because of incomplete research, PATP presents several implementation challenges, including the modeling of food temperature, the determination of inactivation kinetics particularly for bacterial spores, and the prediction of chemical changes including the potential formation of toxic compounds.

The wide variety of commercialized food products using high-pressure processing (HPP) illustrates the versatility of this technology that has evolved from the status of emerging processing to an industrial reliable technology in the past 20 years. The unique effects of pressure on food constituents along with the consumers' acceptance of the process, explain the tremendous potential of this technology for the production of microbiologically safe, nutritional-rich and preservative-free products. While the advantages of the process compensate for the reasonable processing cost (€0.045 /kg to €0.087 /kg, i.e., ∼ US$ 0.066/lb to US$ 0.127/lb depending on the operating conditions at an industrial level), the technology still needs to overcome few drawbacks to pursue its development, and some more mechanistic understanding of HPP effects are yet required. This chapter gives an overview of the effect of this technology on food safety- and shelf life-related microorganisms, food constituents, and quality attributes of treated products. This chapter also addresses the use of this technology as an extraction tool and identifies some of the challenges that the technology still faces. The past, current and upcoming progresses that have been done on the development of industrial-size high pressure equipment, and the current commercial applications are also described.

High Pressure Processing (HPP), in the range of 200 MPa to 600 MPa/29,000 psi to 87,000 psi, is the most advanced emerging non-thermal processing technology for food. The constant improvements of high pressure equipment concerning productivity and production costs have facilitated the increase of industrial uses of the technology. This paper reviews some of these advances in high pressure food processing including development of new functional beverages the new value proposals being offered by copackers substitution of traditional thermal techniques for novel product manufacturing and refrigerated services suppliers. Substitution of thermal treatments for meat processing and tenderisation of low value meat cuts.