Cornell food scientists are putting the squeeze on the microorganisms that spoil food and make people sick. With the installation of a new high-pressure food processor, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has become the nation's first commercial-scale validation facility for a technology that kills foodborne pathogens and extends shelf life without heat or chemical preservatives for fresh, ready-to-eat foods like juice, baby foods, meats and salads.
The Hiperbaric 55 high-pressure food processor at Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva, New York, will set food safety standards for the increasingly popular high-pressure processing favored by companies for its ability to retain fresh quality attributes in food while inactivating spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms.