Shelf life extension of strawberry juice by equivalent ultrasound, high pressure, and pulsed electric fields processes.

Nonthermal processing technologies have focused on the production of safe, fresh-like and high quality food products very much in line with current consumer demands. It is a high priority to maintain the quality attributes of the food during its shelf life. In this study; microbial stability, physicochemical properties and phytochemical characteristics of strawberry juice (SJ) pasteurized by ultrasonication (US) (55 °C, 0.29 W/mL acoustic energy density, 120 μm amplitude, 3 min), high pressure processing (HPP) (300 MPa, 1 min), and pulsed electric fields (PEF) (35 kV/cm, 27 μs) were evaluated during 42 days of storage at 4 °C in comparison with conventional thermal pasteurization as a reference treatment (72 °C, 15 s). The nonthermal processes were equivalent in terms of E. coli inactivation since the selected processing conditions previously led to almost identical inactivation level (at least 5-log) of inoculated E. coli. Thus, the current study demonstrates how these equivalent US, HPP, and PEF treatments differ from each other in terms of their effect on SJ natural microbiota and quality characteristics during refrigerated storage. Results showed that US, HPP, and heat treatment ensured the microbial stability of SJ for at least 42 days while PEF extended the shelf life of SJ by at least 28 days based on the natural microbiota. No significant difference was found for the total soluble solids of the processed samples (p > 0.05) whereas acidity and pH of the samples varied during the storage period (p < 0.05). Immediately after processing, the total phenolic contents and antioxidant activities of SJ were better retained by HPP and PEF compared to thermal pasteurization. Furthermore, HPP and PEF significantly increased total anthocyanin content of SJ by 15 and 17% with respect to untreated SJ (p < 0.05). Phytochemical characteristics of processed SJ started to decrease after 7 days of storage irrespective of treatment type. HPP treated juices showed significantly higher levels of total anthocyanin and antioxidant activity at the final day of storage. Principal component and cluster analysis showed that the processed SJ samples had higher similarity to the untreated fresh SJ during storage up to 14 days, while the samples beyond this storage period clustered together and discriminated from the rest indicating a decreased similarity to the fresh juice. This study rendered simultaneous evaluation of several quality characteristics during storage of pasteurized strawberry juice based on the equivalent processing approach and multivariate data analysis. Under the selected processing conditions, HPP was the best option to extend the shelf life of SJ and enhance its phytochemical characteristics.