The purposes of this study was to investigate the effect of high pressure processing (HPP) on a sterilization and microbiological shelf-life of commercial beef patties by varying the pressure level (200, 300, 400, and 500 MPa), treatment time (0-10 min), and storage period (0-16 day at 4oC). The HPP treatment of 200 MPa were ineffective, however the treatment of 300, 400, and 500 MPa reduced the bacterial count by 0.61-1.16, 1.11-1.69, and 2.73-3.86 log (CFU/g), respectively. During 16 days of storage, the viable cell numbers in beef patties treated with 400 and 500 MPa were substantially lower than those in the non-treated control. The control count reached 6.6 log CFU/g after 16 days at 4oC, but after the same storage time, the counts in HPP-treated samples of 400 and 500 MPa were 4.7 and 3.1 log CFU/g, respectively. After an HPP treatment of 200-500 MPa, the pH values were approximately 5.83-6.28. During the 16 days of storage, the pH values in the samples of 400-500 MPa were maintained at initial levels throughout the storage period, regardless of treatment time for HPP.

Black pepper (piper nigrium L.) is a spice commonly used but has a problem with microbial control, so it needs non-thermal decontamination method for product quality of dried foods. Intense pulsed light (IPL) technology is a non-thermal method for superficial decontamination of foods to inactivate pathogenic microorganisms by using high peak power and short duration pulses of a broad-spectrum (170-2600 nm) using a xenon lamp. The objective of this study was to reduce total number of bacteria in ground black pepper effectively by combined treatments of IPL and immobilized TiO2 photocatalyst. Self-designed cyclone type of pilot-scaled IPL device (> 5 kg/h) was used, which makes samples to flow cyclonically in a vacuum space longer time rather than moving vertically. Using this device alone, without TiO2 coated, 0.3-0.6 log reductions were achieved under a total energy fluence of 14.85 J/cm2 (DC voltage; 1200, 1800, and 2400 V, pulse duty; 0.5, 2.1, and 3.0 ms, treatment time; 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 s, frequency; 2 Hz). Subsequently, TiO2-coated quartz plates with different layers between light source and samples were installed to observe the effect of photocatalyst and the efficiency of decontamination was improved slightly. However to increase the effect of the photocatalyst, several factors (TiO2 particle size, TiO2 film thickness and transparency, adhesiveness between quartz and photocatalyst, etc.) need to be concerned additionally. Nevertheless, the application of IPL treatment combined with TiO2 photocatalyst offers a potential of effective non-thermal decontamination method for dealing with powder foods in food industry.