The orégano, the albahaca, the azafrán, the pimentón, the cinnamon, the thyme, the romero or the pepper, between other spices, now will be able to have treatments that in addition to guaranteeing the microbiological quality, will conserve his properties organolépticas own respecting to the maximum his aroma, colour, flavour or original texture.
Up to now, in the industry of herbs and spices have used technical of inactivación microbiological such as the irradiation, the employment of oxide of etileno and the steam in favour of the alimentary hygiene. These treatments, although effective, present diverse limitations between which stand out the deterioration of the properties organolépticas.
The European project GreenFooDec, coordinated by Ainia, is cream with the aim to find technological alternatives that allow to substitute precisely to the current, resolving like this one of the most sued needs by the big majority of the companies of the sector especiero European: the maintenance of the properties organolépticas inherent of the product.
Through this project will evaluate different technologies to guarantee the microbiological quality in herbs and spices, attaining like this improve the alimentary hygiene keeping the properties organolépticas of the final product like the flavour, smell, colour or texture. In concrete, the technological alternatives that will analyse are: infrared, microwaves, cold plasma and carbon dioxide to high pressesure combined with ultrasounds.
Photo: Bev Lloyd-Roberts.
Framed inside the VII Program Mark of R&D of the European Union and with a length of two years and half, GreenFooDec is coordinated by Ainia Technological Centre. It has the participation of nine pertinent organisations of four countries. In him they take part the centres of investigation SIK (Sweden), ATB (Germany), Tubitak (Turkey) and ainia, beside three associations: the Spanish Association of Elaboradores and Envasadores of Spices and Condiments (AEC), the German Association of Spices (FGI), and the Association of exporting Turkish (Aegean). Also they participate in the project the companies especieras Juan José Albarracín (Spain) and Defne (Turkey).
The project will contribute also to develop and implement new applications in other alimentary sectors, so that it extrapolate the knowledge generated and the strategies developed to other products dehydrated with similar needs.
