Hurdle Technology

SANT LONGOWAL INSTITUTE
OF ENGG. & TECHNOLOGY

Subject: Innovative Techniques in Food Technology
Topic: Hurdle Technology & its application in Food Technology
Submitted To: Submitted By:
Prof. M B Bera Sir Nandani Ray (GFT/1731919)
Hurdle Technology
★ Hurdle technology was developed as a new concept for the production of safe, stable, nutritious,
tasty, and economical foods.
★ Hurdle Technology is a technology that uses a combination of two or more preservation
parameters at an optimum level in order to get a maximum lethality against micro-organisms
without compromising with the nutritional and sensory qualities of food products.
Example of Hurdles
★ high temperature during processing
★ low temperature during storage
★ increasing the acidity
★ lowering the water activity or redox potential
★ presence of preservatives
Each hurdle aims to eliminate, inactivate or at least inhibit unwanted microorganisms. The most
important hurdles commonly used in food preservation are based on controlling temperature,
water activity, acidity, redox potential and the use of preservatives, modified atmosphere and
competitive microorganisms (e.g. lactic acid bacteria).
Need for Hurdle Technology
★ Consumers are demanding for fresh, natural and minimally processed food products.
★ Ongoing trend has been eat out and to consume ready to eat foods.
★ New ecology routes for microbial growth have emerged.
Principle of Hurdle Technology
★ Preservative factors or hurdles disturb the homeostasis of microorganisms.

★ Microorganisms should not be able to “jump over”all the hurdles present in the food product.
★ Preservative factors prevents microorganisms from multiplying and causing them to remain
inactive or even die.
★ The hurdle concept illustrates that complex interactions of temperature, water activity, pH etc
are significant to the microbial stability.
Signiﬁcance of Hurdle Technology
★ Improves product quality and microbial safety.
★ Save money, energy and several other sources.
★ Food remains stable and safe, high in sensory and nutritive value due to gentle process applied.
★ Doesn’t affects the integrity of food pieces.
★ Application in both large and small industries.
★ Manufacture of new products according to need of processor and consumer.
Types of Hurdle
1. Physical Hurdles: Heat processing, manipulation of storage temperatures, irradiation,

electromagnetic energy, photodynamic inactivation, ultrahigh pressure processing,
ultrasonication and packaging
2. Physicochemical Hurdles: Water activity (aw), pH, redox potential (Eh), salt (NaCl), nitrite
(NaNO2), carbon dioxide (CO2), oxygen (O2), ozone (O3), organic acids, spices and herbs,
sulphite or SO2, smoking, ethanol, maillard reaction products (MRPs) and lysozyme
3. Microbiologically derived Hurdles: Competitive flora,starter cultures, bacteriocins and
antibiotics
The advantages of hurdle concepts are
★ it can avoid the severity of one hurdle for preservation,

★ it can give synergy of combination, and
★ many of the hurdles come from past experience
(i.e. tradition or culture)
Potential Hurdles in Food Technology
High temperature
i. Pasteurization
★ mild heat treatment

★ high product quality
★ destroys vegetative pathogens (disease-causing microbes)
ii. Sterilization
★ complete destruction of microorganisms

★ severe heat treatment
★ destroys spores gives which gives shelf-stable product
★ quality destruction (colour, flavour, texture)
Contd….
iii. Blanching
★ blanching is a kind of pasteurization generally applied to fruits and vegetables

★ applied to inactivate natural enzymes
★ commonly practiced when food is to be frozen depending on its severity
★ also destroys microorganisms
Low temperature
i. Refrigeration
★ ideally 0°C to 4°C for most foods

★ short-term preservation (days to weeks)
★ high product quality (fresh, minimally processed, sous vide)
★ slows down microbial growth, respiration, enzyme/chemical reactions
★ some pathogens can grow
Contd….
ii. Freezing
★ generally -18°C to -30°C

★ quality depends on product time, temperature
★ long- long-term preservation (months to years)
★ stops microbial growth
★ respiration slows down chemical reactions
★ must have good packaging
Contd….
Reduced Water Activity
★ water is required for microbial growth, enzyme/chemical reactions

★ pathogenic microorganisms cannot grow at aw < 0.86 yeast & moulds cannot grow at aw <0.62
★ free water can be removed by concentration, dehydration and freeze drying
★ the lower the aw, the longer the storage life
Increased Acidity
★ acidity slows down growth of spoilage organisms and pathogens

★ pathogens won’t grow
★ spores won’t germinate at pH<4.5 (e.g., fruit juices, sauerkraut)
★ must sterilize for shelf stability below pH 4.5
★ can pasteurize
Mechanism of Food preservation by
Hurdle Technology:
1. Homeostasis
★ Tendency of any organism to maintain its internal status is known as Homeostasis. The
homeostasis of microorganisms plays a key role in food preservation.
★ If any of the hurdles used in food disturbs the homeostasis of these microorganisms, they will
not be able to multiply and will remain constant in number or will die before the
re-establishment of homeostasis.
★ Therefore, food preservation can be achieved by disturbing the homeostasis of microorganism,
temporarily or permanently .
Contd….
2. Metabolic Exhaustion
★ In this step, microorganisms try to repair their homeostasis, use up all their energy for this and
become metabolically exhausted.
★ This leads to an auto-sterilization of such foods.
★ The foods which are preserved with the concept of hurdle technology and are
microbiologically stable, become safer during storage at ambient temperature.
★ The microbes can respond better to the hurdles at ambient temperature than at refrigeration and
become metabolically exhausted.
Contd….
3. Stress Reactions:
★ As a response of various hurdles e.g. heat, pH, aw , ethanol, oxidative compounds, etc. as
well starvation, a stress shock protein is generated by some bacteria.
★ These stress proteins may hamper food preservation and could turn out to be problematic for
the application of hurdle technology if only one hurdle has been applied.
★ If different stresses are received by the microorganism at the same time, the activation of
genes for the synthesis of stress shock proteins, which help organisms to cope with stress
situation, would be difficult.
★ Synthesis of many stress shock proteins due to simultaneous exposure to different stresses will
be very energy-consuming and would lead to metabolic exhaustion of the microorganism.
Contd….
4. Multi-Target Preservation:
★ A combined effect could be achieved by hitting various targets within the microbial cell (e.g.,
cell membrane, DNA, enzyme systems, pH, aw, Eh) by using different hurdles simultaneously.
★ This disturbs the homeostasis of the microorganisms present in several respects.
★ In this case, the replenishment of homeostasis and activation of stress shock proteins becomes
more difficult.
★ Therefore, simultaneous application of different hurdles in a particular food would lead to
optimal microbial stability.
Applications
★ It is a suitable technology for blanching cauliflower to inactivate the catalase and peroxidase
enzyme.
★ It is used to preserve mango fruit with the application of Aloe Vera gel and Calcium chloride.
★ Classical preservation of meat is done by refrigeration combined with heating, acids, curing
salts or anaerobic packaging.
★ Combined treatment of HHP processing and addition of antimicrobials to milk substrate have
shown additive and synergistic effects against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.
★ Tomatoes are preserved by acidification and in-pack heating (canned tomatoes) and osmotic
concentration (tomato paste) resulting from high temperature evaporation of water under
vacuum and hot filling or aseptic packaging.
Contd….
★ Common salt or organic acids can be used as hurdles to control microbes in food. Many natural
antimicrobials such as nisin, natamycin and other bacteriocins, and essential oils derived from
rosemary or thyme, also work well.
★ Used to produce heat-processed, cured meat products (heating, addition of nitrite, water activity
modification and sometimes addition of lactate preservatives).
★ Fermented food products are made safe and stable for long periods through a sequence of
hurdles that arise at different stages of fermentation process.

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SANT LONGOWAL INSTITUTE

OF ENGG. & TECHNOLOGY

★ Preservative factors or hurdles disturb the homeostasis of microorganisms.

1. Physical Hurdles: Heat processing, manipulation of storage temperatures, irradiation,

★ it can avoid the severity of one hurdle for preservation,

★ mild heat treatment

★ complete destruction of microorganisms

★ blanching is a kind of pasteurization generally applied to fruits and vegetables

★ ideally 0°C to 4°C for most foods

★ generally -18°C to -30°C

★ water is required for microbial growth, enzyme/chemical reactions

★ acidity slows down growth of spoilage organisms and pathogens

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