Microbial Food Safety Through Emerging Technologies Based on Ultraviolet Light for Liquid Food Processing

While aiming to end hunger, food safety is essential to food security. This should be sought at the different levels of the food processing chain to guarantee that food reaches consumers free of contaminants. There are many potential points of food contamination with spoilage-prompt, opportunist, or pathogenic organisms, as well as chemical substances or hazards during food processing. Focusing on food microbial safety at post harvesting stage, many different emergent techniques have been studied for food preservation with varying degrees of processing. Low-pressure ultraviolet light (UV-LP), ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs), and pulsed light (PL) treatments are non-thermal technologies that use ultraviolet radiation in different arrangements and electromagnetic wavelengths for the inactivation of microorganisms in food systems. Even though each of them has advantages and disadvantages in their large-scale application for processing liquid foods, several studies have demonstrated the potential of these technologies to replace traditional pasteurization treatments. Their effectiveness depends on the characteristics of the sample matrix and the optimization of the operating parameters. Moreover, the effect of equipment configuration on the treatment effectiveness and the synergistic effect among UV radiation when combined with thermal and non-thermal treatments has been recognized. Novel equipment designs and the implementation of regulation for industry regulations of these treatments promise to be an efficient technology for liquid food processing, which can help meeting the 2030 agenda’s goal of diminuish population’s malnutrion.