Innovation trends in food drying and beverage dealcoholisation

Drying is an excellent method to preserve vegetables and fruits that can add variety to meals and provide delicious and nutritious ready-to-eat crispy snacks. Drying combined with a pre-treatment appears to be a cost-effective method of preservation. Pre-treatments prior to drying have been reported to help reducing some of undesired changes such as antioxidant activity reduction, colour and textural changes, etc. Also, they reduce drying time by relaxing tissue structure and yield good quality dried products with high rehydration capacity. Among chemical pretreatments, innovative dipping solutions have been created for several vegetables and fruits. These dipping are diluted solutions (ppm) of natural components (such as trehalose, NaCl and sucrose) and do not contain chemical substances (i.e. sulphates) which may case allergenic reactions in sensitive people. Moreover, alternative physical pre-treatment has been developed for drying berries, consisting of abrasion of the peel waxes. Regarding wine and beer, the production of low alcohol beverages represents a new fast-growing sector due to major awareness about serious long-term effects of drinking and societal and individual vulnerability factors on alcohol consumption, together with consumers’ preferences. Various techniques are used to produce low alcohol beverages, but the main obstacle to their development is taste and quality reduction. Osmotic distillation is a gentle membrane technique suitable for partial and total dealcoholisation. An important step is the optimization of process parameters which may allow to minimize volatile compounds reduction in beverages, and apply adequate strategies to preserve the nutritional and sensory properties of the original beverages.