Ozone Treatments for Preserving Fresh Vegetables Quality: A Critical Review

Abstract

Ozone is recognized as an antimicrobial agent for vegetables storage, washing, and processing. This strong disinfectant is now being used in the food industry. In this review, the chemical and physical properties of ozone, its generation, and factors affecting ozone processing efficiency were explained as well as recent regulatory developments in the food industry. By then selecting three vegetables, we show that ozone avoids and controls biological growth on vegetables, keeping their attractive appearance and sensorial qualities, assuring nutritional characteristics’ retention and maintaining and increasing the shelf-life. In liquid solution, ozone can be used to disinfect processing water and vegetables, and in gaseous form, ozone helps to sanitize and preserve vegetables during storage. The multifunctionality of ozone makes it a promising food processing agent. However, if ozone is improperly used, it causes some deleterious effects on products, such as losses in their sensory quality. For an effective and a safe use of ozone, specific treatment conditions should be determined for all kinds of vegetables. In a last step, we propose highlighting the different essential characteristics of ozone treatment in order to internationally harmonize the data relating to the treatments carried-out.

Effect of Gaseous Ozone on Listeria monocytogenes Planktonic Cells and Biofilm: An In Vitro Study

“…With regard to this, ozone has a reduced environmental impact compared to other chemicals employed in food processing environments and its effectiveness against a wide range of microorganisms is well documented [ 18 , 26 ]. The future possible application of this technology in food processing environments has been thoroughly reviewed in the last years [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. However, data concerning the action of ozone on microbial biofilm are still scarce.…”

Ozone in wineries and wine processing: A review of the benefits, application, and perspectives

“…Although the application of ozone in several foods, and beverages, has been discussed extensively (Table 2) (Botondi et al, 2021;De Santis et al, 2021;Sarron et al, 2021;Sivaranjani et al, 2021), no review to date has F I G U R E 1 Ozone production in the atmosphere comprehensively analyzed the prospects of using this technology in wineries. Therefore, this review discussed the efficacy of the ozone treatment and a promising alternative sanitizing agent to traditional methods to prevent microbial growth in the wine industry.…”

Gaseous ozone to preserve quality and enhance microbial safety of fresh produce: Recent developments and research needs

“…Vegetables tend to be more sensitive to ozone than fruits in terms of ozone‐induced injury. Studies have demonstrated that gaseous ozone is not likely of commercial value for leafy vegetables (Sarron et al., 2021). Therefore, the present review focuses on the application of gaseous ozone on fruits.…”