High Pressure Podcast – Episode 2: New HPP Research with Hiperbaric: Seafood, Pet Food, and Cold Brew Coffee
Listen to the HPP Podcast here.
Episode 2 Transcript:
Jenny:
Welcome to the High Pressure Podcast, the podcast where we talk about all things High Pressure Processing. I’m your host, Jenny Tuggle, Marketing Director at Universal Pure. On today’s episode, we’re joined by some of our friends at Hiperbaric, one of our HPP machine manufacturers. Welcome, Anthony and Daniela.
Anthony:
Hey there Jenny, I will start off by saying thank you for having us on, both myself and Daniela. That’s quite the name of a podcast you have there, High Pressure Podcast or HPP. So congrats, congrats on the initiative.
To quickly introduce myself, my name is Anthony Zapata. I’m the business development manager at Hiperbaric. In my role, I essentially help educate food and beverage companies about the benefits of High Pressure Processing. It’s quite the technology, it’s game changing technology, that helps meet consumer demands for fresher foods. I’ve been in the industry for six years now. As you know, I had the opportunity to work with Universal Pure prior to joining Hiperbaric back in 2020. To introduce Hiperbaric. Hiperbaric is the global leader and manufacturer of HPP equipment. We’ve been designing and marketing HPP machines since 1999. We’re actually celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, so it’s quite the accomplishment.
Yeah, big stuff, big initiatives that have been taking place for the last 25 years – to date, we’ve installed a little over 400 machines, with half of those being in North America. We have a global presence with an office in, as you know, Miami. We also opened an office in San Luis Potosí in Mexico. Also, presence with Oceania, we have our headquarters in Burgos, Spain. For anyone that does not know where Burgos is about two hours north of Madrid and the most exciting news: we recently opened a new office in Shanghai, China, which will also have a pilot plant. Yeah. And with that, I’ll hand it over to Daniela to introduce herself.
Daniela:
Thank you, Anthony, and hello Jenny and everyone who’s listening. My name is Daniela Soto. I’m an HPP food specialist from Hiperbaric. I’m also based in Miami as well as Anthony. And in my role, I give scientifical support to companies and customers who are interested in implementing HPP in their products and their processes. I also help them to make compatible products with HPP. I have experience in research as well as in the food industry focused on emerging technologies such as HPP and also have been involved with the IFT, the Institute of Food Technologists, where I won two international competitions organized by the institution where I expose different applications of HPP and the food industry such as juices, ready-to-eat (RTE) meals and others.
Jenny:
It sounds like we definitely have the right two people on the podcast today.
Anthony:
Yeah, it’s actually a very interesting story, though, so one of those competitions that Daniela mentioned before joining, she actually had reached out to Hiperbaric who sponsored that trip. Dani, do you want to maybe share some of the stories that you’ve shared with me about that trip?
Daniela:
Yeah, of course. Yeah, so I graduated from the Tecnológico of Monterrey in Mexico, and it has a very good food science program. And there we, with my team, we participated with one of these competitions. The main one was developing solutions for developing countries. And what we did is we collaborated with some farmers from Mexico by upcycling their pears that they produced in the city of Puebla, and what we did was producing a pear juice and pear nectar by using HPP technology. With this it had like a social impact to the industry in that region and we produced it, it went successfully. The results in the lab and everything and this way was the way in which we gained the competition in Chicago, but since we required funding and also we required sponsorship, we reached out to Hiperbaric to have some guidance from the applications team and also guidance on how the equipment worked. So this is how my first interactions with Hiperbaric started and Hiperbaric was very generous by offering a lot of support on this.
Anthony:
And the next thing you know, a few years later, she’s now our HPP expert, so she leads our food science program here in Miami.
Jenny:
Oh wow, that is a great story. Thank you for sharing. One thing I know about Hiperbaric is that you are always doing new research on HPP product applications and food safety. Tell us a little bit about some of the most recent research projects you’ve done.
Anthony:
Yeah, absolutely. So I guess, let’s take a step back for anyone in the audience that does not know what HPP is, I’ll give you a quick introduction. HPP stands for High Pressure Processing, which you’ve already probably have got from the name of this podcast. It’s a non-thermal technology, so it’s an alternative to thermal pasteurization. It uses only water and high pressure – pressures of 87,000 PSI, which is equivalent to 6000 bars. So you think about that amount of pressure, it’s about six times more pressure found at the bottom of the ocean. And through this pressure, we’re able to ensure food safety by inactivating foodborne pathogen such as salmonella, listeria and E. coli, as well as other spoilage microorganisms, which helps extend the shelf-life of foods, without affecting the fresh characteristics of the food product. Also, since it is a post packaging process, it helps prevent any recontamination. So you can think of the technology as your food safety insurance. In terms of research, or you know applications that we’ve seen in the industry, the common applications continue to grow. Things from cold pressed juices made from fruits and vegetables, as well as a lot of functional beverages as well. We’ve also seen the meat industry grow both ready-to-eat (RTE) and ready-to-cook (RTC) applications, including charcuterie and deli meats, as well as raw, marinated meats as well as avocado products, mainly guacamole. Also have seen an increase in the dip category, such as hummus and salsa, as well as salad dressings.
And as far as food safety, we’ve seen an increase in the use of the technology for raw pet food. Not only raw pet food, but also in the seafood space for oyster applications. There’s been a number of recalls around Vibrio and norovirus. And like I mentioned earlier, HPP can help tackle and inactivate these pathogens and ensure a safer food product for all manufacturers dealing with these applications.
I’ll hand it off to like I said, our food scientists and HPP expert to tell us a little bit more about the research and findings around some of these applications, including seafood.
Daniela:
Thank you, Anthony. And yes, I want to make note on the main applications of shellfish and vivos and seafood products since HPP can help perform shucking while also ensure the food safety by inactivating the pertinent pathogens that you mentioned, which are Vibrio and norovirus and HPP are very gentle application to these type of products because it can help preserve the sensory and quality attributes that are mainly attributed and characterized by being fresh products with a very specific taste – so HPP won’t change these characteristics. Also, HPP can help the seafood producers to expand their markets by having new commercial formats when processing these products.
We were present at the Seafood Expo in Boston a few months ago, I think it was a month ago, where I gave a presentation on different applications of seafood products. If you’re interested in learning more about this, it was recorded and it is loaded by now on YouTube.
And also I want to mention another application which is growing very fast which are ready-to-eat (RTE) products and ready-to-eat (RTE) products that are focused on seafood. So these products are already cooked, and the producers use HPP to help extend the shelf-life up to two or three times more than the original one, as well as HPP can be implemented as a post-lethal step in order to ensure food safety and prevent recalls on these type of products. We have some customers that right now are using HPP on this application.
Jenny:
Yeah, Universal Pure we’ve been seeing growth in the seafood category. Some of the seafood products in our facilities are lump crab meat, like in the pouches, and then we also now run some seafood dips.
Anthony:
Yeah, that dip product is quite interesting. I’ve even heard of some producers being able to upcycle trimmings of fillets of fish and turn them into, you know, value added dips, using HPP to preserve the freshness and obviously extend shelf-life on that.
Jenny:
Yeah, Anthony, I’m really glad that you mentioned that. You kind of make a good point. These brands are upcycling those scrap pieces of fillets, you know to reduce food waste and make their product go further, but then when they turn that into a seafood dip and then apply High Pressure Processing to it, they’re extending the shelf-life, which is going to give them further distribution range, and ultimately just more time for it to be consumed and further reducing the chance of it going to waste. So it’s kind of interesting to think about.
I saw that Hiperbaric recently published a white paper on cold brew coffee and HPP. Anthony, without giving away the whole thing, could you give us a quick overview of the white paper?
Anthony:
Well, the whole thing is already published. It’s already published in the journal, so anyone that wants to see all the details of the study, essentially was a study in collaboration with the University of Burgos, where they looked at both safety and quality preservation using HPP for cold brew coffee. The study consisted of using 6000 bar, which is equivalent to 87,000 PSI, for three minutes. This is basically the recipe when dealing with HPP technology: it’s both pressure and holding time. So pressures of 6000 bar and holding time of three minutes, and the results were quite impressive. We were able to achieve over six log reduction in inoculated pathogens and we were able to ensure food safety over 90 days of refrigerated storage. And without HPP, pathogens persisted for at least sixty days.
Aside from the food safety and shelf-life benefits, HPP was able to preserve the quality attributes of the products such as color, overall freshness and the physical chemical parameters such as pH, acidity, and TDS, as well as bioactive compounds over that 90 day storage.
We’ve already been seeing a commercial success with this application. We have a customer out of South Korea by the name of Next Bio, who recently purchased a 300L machine for the use of cold brew coffee and is exporting not only in the Asian region but also to the United States. Some interesting stuff.
Jenny:
Funny story – My aunt started giving me coffee when I was about six months old. She would put it in a bottle with milk. Of course, it was probably mostly milk, but you could say I’ve been drinking cold brew coffee for quite some time now. So that’s an application that I’m keeping my eye on and as the weather continues to get warmer, I will have cold brew coffee in my fridge.
Anthony:
I’m actually, coincidentally having some right now.
Jenny:
Nice. Thanks for sharing that, Anthony. Let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about pet food. Pet food is just about the fastest growing product application that we’re seeing at Universal Pure. So I’m curious to hear about the work that Hiperbaric’s doing in the fresh pet food and raw pet food space.
Daniela:
Thank you, Jenny, for bringing up the topic of raw food applications. And as you mentioned, it is a rapidly growing market and High Pressure Processing technology is very well suited for this type of product, since as you may know, it helps preserve the quality and sensory attributes of a raw product, while also ensuring the food safety which will help meet with the food safety regulations that have been published and imposed by now.
So if you want to know more about the different pet food applications with HPP, we will be attending the Pet Food Forum in Kansas in a few weeks, where I will be giving a talk on the different applications in pet food. And for anyone that can’t make it, we’ll be streaming it on our YouTube channel as well as on our LinkedIn profile.
But I want to mention, too that raw pet food by itself has been shown to have significant positive effects on pets’ digestibility as well as pet bowel issues, so HPP can help preserve these benefits, these health benefits, while also ensuring the food safety by preventing recalls due to inactivation of pertinent pathogens.
Jenny:
Thank you for that information, Daniela. So I think once this podcast is published, Pet Food Forum will probably have already happened, but we will be sure to include the link to your live presentation once we publish the podcast. We will be at SuperZoo in August though, so hopefully we’ll see you guys there.
Anthony:
Nice, awesome, yeah. And since we’re on the topic of raw pet food, I just wanted to add on that one of our customers, Steve’s Real Food, actually did a comprehensive study on the effects of HPP on several vitamins and minerals on numerous raw meat diets. I can also send you that link Jenny. It’s quite impressive the results that they were able to obtain.
Jenny:
Yeah, thank you, Anthony. Does Hiperbaric offer any programs to help brands that are looking to get started with HPP?
Anthony:
Yeah, absolutely. So out of both our Miami office and headquarters in Burgos, Spain, as well as our new office in Shanghai, China, we have what’s called the HPP Incubator Program where we open our doors to any food entrepreneurs, small to the largest corporations, to basically conduct testing. This is Daniela’s world, she leads our pilot plant and incubator program, so I’ll hand it off to her to kind of walk us through what that process looks like and some of the services that we’re able to offer.
Daniela:
Thank you, Anthony. And yes, as you mentioned, I belong to the Hiperbaric Applications Department, where we offer this type of guidance, different ways of making your product compatible with HPP. We can bring the service and support on regulatory advice as well as R&D guidance, packaging recommendations to anyone who is interested in processing and discovering how HPP can change your processing and your products. And additionally, as Anthony mentioned, we lead the HPP Incubator Pilot Plant programs in three different locations, and yes, you’re invited to ship us your product or to come visit us to see and to experience firsthand the benefits that HPP can bring to your food products. It will be a pleasure to help you and to have you here.
Anthony:
Yeah, I think there’s two keywords in that: complementary, so there’s no charge for any of these services. And two, Miami, FL.
Jenny:
Yeah. So it sounds to me like you are inviting me to come down and visit, so I might have to take you up on that.
Anthony:
Anytime, happy to host you.
Jenny:
Are there any other resources or upcoming events that Hiperbaric has planned that you could share with us?
Anthony:
Funny you asked. Yeah, we’re actually working on our annual HPP Innovation Week. It’s an online conference on all things High Pressure Processing technology. This year’s event’s gonna be taking place on June 18th to the 20th under the slogan, “Raising the bar for food safety, quality and clean label products.” Session topics include HPP trends, regulations, some of the new applications that we’ve mentioned in this podcast, sustainability, both from the perspective of operating the machine, and also sustainability actions taken by Hiperbaric, and how to improve efficiencies around operation, including our automation offerings. And the attendees in the past have included food manufacturers and retailers, packaging suppliers, academic leaders and brands using HPP.
In the past, we’ve had over 6000 plus attendees, and in this year’s event, we’re going to be hosting the 2nd edition of the HPP Research Awards, where we take submissions by academic leaders that have researched on High Pressure Processing and give them awards for their contributions and research to the HPP industry.
Jenny:
Oh, nice, cool. Thanks for sharing that, Anthony. Yeah, HPP Innovation Week is a great way to learn more about HPP, especially if you’re new to the technology, but also it’s just a good event even if you’ve been around the technology for a while, you can learn more about what’s going on, current trends, new research, and it’s just a great way to get connected to others in the industry.
Anthony:
Yeah, anyone who wants to check out the program can go to our website where we have already most of the sessions listed out, and it’s free.
Jenny:
Yeah, free as always good. We will be sure to share the details of how you can register for and access HPP Innovation Week as well as include the links to all the resources mentioned throughout the podcast on our website in our podcast page.
All right. Well, before we go, is there anything else you’d like to say?
Anthony:
Thank you to the Universal Pure team for having us on the podcast, and yeah, we appreciate the opportunity and hope to see you guys out at some of these food trade shows coming up.
Jenny:
Yep, we’ll see you there. Thank you both for joining us today for our HPP podcast. We look forward to our next episode where we will have a conversation with the President of RFA – Refrigerated Foods Association – Mark Rosenfield of Reser’s Fine Foods. Stay tuned for more details and we’ll see you next time.
Above mention resources:
- Pet Food Forum 2024 – Benefits of Using HPP In Raw Pet Food Production
- Cold Brew Coffee – Blog Entry
- Cold Brew Coffee Published Scientific Article:
- HPP Innovation Week 2024
- HPP Research Awards 2024
- Pilot Plant/ Incubator Program
