Photo: Chemmat’s Professor Mohammed Farid

 

Professor Farid often depicts the pressure exerted in high pressure processing visually, as two elephants standing on a coin.

The Ministry for Primary Industries recently approved the use of high pressure processing (HPP) as a process that kills the bacterial pathogens that are known to cause problems in New Zealand food, but one that involves very little heat. This means the nutritional value or quality of the food isn’t compromised in the way it can be by heat.

Professor Mohammed Farid is a long-time champion of HPP, and he his team at Chemmat have been researching the benefits of it since 2003. Instead of heat, HPP treats food by using hydrostatic pressure. It’s more commonly known as cold-press – the fashionable way to pasteurise some fruit juices.

“They’re exactly the same thing but cold-press sounds more appealing to customers,” says Professor Farid.

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