This text describes food preservation techniques, with emphasis being placed both on the innovative exploitation of traditional procedures, including combination preservation methods, and on more radical approaches such as the use of high hydrostatic pressures or voltage pulses to inactivate micro-organisms in food, and the direct and synergistic application or ultrasonic radiation. The book is intended to enable food technologists, product development staff, production managers and quality assurance personnel to assimilate the essential principals behind each technique and review the applications.

The majO.r techniques emplO.yed fO.r fO.O.d preservatiO.n have a 100ng histo'ry O.f use. They include chilling; freezing; drying; curing; cO.nserving; fer- menting O.r O.therwise acidifying; the additiO.n O.f preservatives; heat- pasteurisatiO.n and sterilisatiO.n. Newer techniques mO.re-O.r-less derived frO.m these traditiO.nal proce- dures include the successful applicatiO.n O.f cO.mbinatiO.n. preservatiO.n O.r 'hurdle' methO.ds, vacuum- and mO.dified atmO.sphere-packaging, and cO.ntinuO.us sterilisatiO.n cO.upled to' aseptic packaging. More innO.vative techniques, such as the use O.f iO.nising radiatiO.n, are increasingly being emplO.yed. At the same time, there is a reawakening O.f interest in even mO.re radical apprO.aches. The reaSO.ns fO.r this derive principally from cO.nsumers' requirements fO.r fO.O.ds that are higher in quality, so. less severely prO.ces- sed; mO.re natural, so. less heavily preserved; nutritiO.nally healthier, so. cO.ntaining less salts, sugars and fats; and, with respect to' fO.O.d pO.isO.ning, with retained, O.r preferably improved, assurance O.f safety.

Bacterial spores are the most resistant and dormant forms of life on earth. Therefore, they are of great fundamental interest. They are the targets for inactivation in some of the largest food and pharmaceutical industries on earth, and are of great practical importance. Many research groups around the world have attempted to unravel the spore's mechanisms of resistance, dormancy and germination. Although complete understanding has not yet been achieved, substantial advances have been made in recent years. The most important of these advances are summarized here by scientists in the forefront of their particular areas of expertise. This volume will be of value to research microbiologists, geneticists, biochemists and physicists who are interested in the fundamentals of the biochemical and physical basis of resistance and dormancy, and in spore science more generally. It will also be of value to those scientists who are concerned with the thoroughly practical problems of spore destruction and control in the food and pharmaceutical industries and in public health.