Performing Under Pressure: H.P.P. is gaining traction with processors

(MEAT&POULTRY, July 1, 2006)

By Joel Crews jcrews@sosland.com 

High-pressure processing has gained momentum thanks in large part to the adoption of the technology by Hormel Foods Corp., Austin, Minn., and Perdue Farms, Salisbury, Md. H.P.P. is evolving, and its applications in the food industry are being embraced by not only large companies but also smaller processors. Meanwhile, the technology continues to interest university researchers, a growing number of equipment suppliers and has spawned at least one entrepreneurial venture outsourcing H.P.P.

H.P.P., a post-packaging pasteurization step using approximately 87,000 pounds per square inch of water pressure to denature pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes, is the technology behind the "all natural, no preservatives" claim on Hormel's new Natural Choice line of luncheon meats, which were rolled out this past May.

H.P.P. is not only effective as a postpackage food safety intervention, but it also is a selling point to consumers demanding cleaner product labels, according to research conducted by

Hormel officials. For deli meat processors, the technology replaces the need for adding pathogen growth inhibitors such as sodium lactates and sodium diacetates, while offering retail customers 120 days of shelf life.

"The market for products that are natural and contain no preservatives resonated as motivating to ingredient conscious shoppers, appealing to over 50 percent of baby boomers and mature consumers and over 60 percent for Gen Xers," says Ryan Vossler, product manager for the Natural Choice retail line. "With H.P.P., Hormel Foods is able to meet consumer demand for 100 percent natural, great-tasting sandwich meat."

Hormel also uses H.P.P. technology for foodservice products. Dennis Goettsch, vice president of marketing, says, "Foodservice used the research conducted by the retail side and already knew, based on customer input, that there would be demand." H.P.P.-treated products for both segments are manufactured at Hormel's facility in Osceola, Iowa, using high-pressure vessels from Avure Technologies, Kent, Wash. Hormel originally installed a small H.P.P. system at its Austin plant as it experimented with the technology for treating its proscuitto ham in the late 1990s. Hormel later reportedly installed four additional systems at its Osceola plant, as it geared up for the rollout of its latest products.

Avure has been designing and selling high-pressure vessels for 50 years to a variety of industries. The Gores Group, a Los Angeles-based investment firm, purchased Avure Technologies from Flow International this past year and the acquisition has left Avure free to focus exclusively on H.P.P. science and technology.

Avure has worked with Hormel as it has adapted H.P.P. for its applications, eventually giving it an opportunity to compete for market share in the readyto-eat sliced meats segment.

As the technology improved and the process was refined, Joel Johnson, then Hormel's C.E.O., led a campaign to offer post-packaging pasteurized products to customers. The company invested millions in its Osceola plant ahead of the rollout in January 2005 of its True Taste brand of H.P.P.-treated, preservative-free products to its institutional customers. To offset some of the investment in H.P.P. systems, the company eliminated costs associated with adding lactates or diacetates to its products.

Perdue Farms, Salisbury, Md., also uses H.P.P. in some of its Short Cuts line of R.T.E., sliced turkey and chicken breast strips, which have become some of its best-selling retail products. This past year the company increased its capacity for H.P.P.-treated product by 50 percent at its Virginia facility. Like Hormel, Perdue sees a benefit in marketing the products as preservative-free.

"What they are doing is leveraging the benefits of high pressure," says Adams, emphasizing the food safety, ex- tended shelf life and the "no preservatives" aspects to its customers.

Avure's food division is projected to grow by about 25 percent this year, giving credence to the theory that the industry is embracing H.P.P. Now that two large companies have put their names behind the technology, many others will likely follow suit. "The industry is cautious, and what Hormel has done along with the success of the Perdue products is raise the attention level of their competitors because they're winning shelf space," says Adams. "You now will see companies such as Costco going out and (specifying) that they want preservative-free deli meats."

Seeing the light

Don't tell Louis Colameco H.P.P. is reserved only for billion-dollar companies such as Hormel and Purdue. Colameco, president of Swedesboro, N.J.-based Wellshire Farms, began using the H.P.P. services offered by American Pasteurization Co., Milwaukee, about a month ago. A.P.C. treats products using H.P.P. for processors on a pay-as you-go basis.

Prior to using H.P.P., Wellshire Farms would vacuum pack and fully cook its products, giving it approximately 10 weeks of shelf life, according to Colameco. But after testing H.P.P. and realizing it could double the shelf life, he says it was an easy decision to switch to the process.

In addition to food safety and shelf life advantages, H.P.P.-treated product tastes better weeks longer than when it was sliced, vacuum-packed and was a day old, Colameco says. "I knew it would be good for shelf life, but I can't believe the taste," he says. "I thought it would diminish."

Because Wellshire uses only vegetarian-fed, hormone-free livestock, H.P.P. was an attractive way to add shelf life to products without additives. Taking advantage of new technologies has helped to propel the company, which has grown by at least 40 percent each year since its founding in 1996.

Wellshire is currently sending 40,000 pounds of sliced, packaged and labeled products per week to A.P.C. in palletized boxes that are folded, but not yet taped shut. A.P.C. pressure pasteurizes each package, inspects each for leaks and metal, and returns them to the same boxes and tapes them shut before loading or storing them.

H.P.P. addresses a problem the company previously had with writing excessive credits for its luncheon meats. Wellshire's products now come with a shelf-life guarantee of eight weeks when they arrives at their distributors, which puts the burden of addressing out-of-date product on the customer. "What we can say now is we know it's going to last at least 16 weeks, and if there is a problem with the product, it has to be something at the distributor or at the store level," Colameco says. "We just eliminated that liability from our company."

Wellshire also markets the technology for its competitive advantage. "We've always been at the forefront in the natural business in terms of being innovative," he says. "I figured I had to do it before my competitors did."

To offset the additional cost to ship the product and have it treated at A.P.C.'s facility, Colameco changed the size of its standard packages from 8 ounces to 7 ounces. "That one ounce offset the cost of pressure pasteurization and shipping," he says. "The price per pound went up, but the price per package stayed the same so we didn't have to change our price on the shelf." He expects the adoption of H.P.P. to increase his sales of sliced meats by 30 percent.

Technology outsource

Likewise, A.P.C. hopes to increase its business with more clients like Wellshire Farms. Justin Segel, cofounder of A.P.C., has known of H.P.P. technology since his days of running Emmpak Foods, Inc. before it was acquired by Cargill in 2001. As a president and C.E.O. of Emmpak, Segel says he kept his eye on the technology's progress from afar.

"We'd been familiar with this technology for seven or eight years and liked it a lot," he says. From the perspective of a processor, Segel says "the idea of a post-package intervention was attractive in terms of brand equity protection as well as giving us performance and shelf life."

After Emmpak was acquired and his employment deal with Cargill ended, Segel and his business partner, George Lang, founded A.P.C. For processors unable to afford a million dollars or so for an H.P.P. system or for those whose plant wouldn't accommodate installing the large system, A.P.C. set up a highpressure facility about a year ago and now charges processors per-pound to treat meat and poultry products using its H.P.P. equipment. "We liked this technology, and we started looking into what the barriers were to people getting into it," he says. "One was the expense and capital cost of the equipment."

Another hindrance for processors was the logistical challenge of retrofitting an H.P.P. system into an existing plant.

A.P.C. currently is processing for about 10 customers, most of whom are making pre-cooked meats. Depending on the type of products, companies pay between 12 and 22 cents per pound to have them treated at A.P.C.'s facility. With one, 215-liter machine, the facility's current capacity is about 225,000 pounds per week. The company plans to add an second high-pressure vessel by December, and Segel says the 25,000-square-foot plant could accommodate up to six lines.

The process-specific facility is designed to serve as an outsource for H.P.P., complete with high ceilings and ample space for shipping and storing perishable products, features not feasible at many processing plants. "We didn't have to spend a fortune building infrastructure against it that we would have if we were operating a meat plant without the necessary space built into it," Segel says.

During his years as a processor, Segel says his focus was always on food safety and protecting brand equity. With this technology, he says processors can address food safety concerns while offering additional value. "In some cases, we're inserted into the supply chain, so we do the final packaging, pre-pricing and perform the pre-shipment review. And we integrate into the HACCP plan of the manufacturer. By pooling a number of volume streams, we're able to get a much better utilization of capacity and fixed cost."

Researching possibilities

Virginia Polytechnic Institute's High Pressure Processing Lab in Blacksburg is yet another resource for food companies interested in learning more about H.P.P. Laura Douglas has worked as the H.P.P. laboratory manager at Virginia Tech, since its opening in 2003.

The lab is equipped with a 35-liter, H.P.P. system. The lab does H.P.P. for food companies, including meat processors, and it works with researchers at other universities to develop and refine the technology.

Douglas says working through the specific applications for each product is achieved through experimentation. Batches of products are typically put under pressure for between one minute and three minutes, she says and

additional time is required to load the chambers with baskets of products, fill the vessel with water and unload the products. Determining the optimum amount of time to pressurize products for the most benefit is conducted on a case-by-case basis and depends on a number of factors. "We help companies figure out what are the optimum parameters," says Douglas. "Longer times at pressure do not always mean greater reduction in plate counts," she adds and consideration is also given to the amount of pressure and the temperature of the product.

Virginia Tech also offers sensory and microbiological analyses of products to determine efficacy and the impact of treatment. The lab has been used by many companies in the meat industry, but confidentiality agreements preclude the release of names, says Douglas. The typical products treated include deli meats and ready-to-eat meals containing meats. Many companies come to the university to test-drive the technology.

George Flick, a university distinguished professor at Virginia Tech, says the meat industry, especially R.T.E. processors, may stand to benefit more from H.P.P. technology than other food companies, due to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's zero tolerance for Lm. "That's been very difficult for some companies to achieve. Using high pressure you can knock out Listeria, and you can bring down some Salmonella, but that has not been a problem (for the industry)," says Flick.

Another benefit of H.P.P., he adds, is the absence of any visual or sensory effects on the product. "If you use a color meter it will pick up a subtle change," he says, "but looking at a treated product with the naked eye it is practically impossible to see any difference."

While the food safety aspects of H.P.P. are well documented, Flick encourages companies to look closely at the residual bacteria after high-pressure pasteurization. "We know spore formers will survive, for example, and we certainly don't want those spore formers to be clostridium botulinum or Bacillus. We recommend taking a good look at the profile of the product going

in and the profile of it coming out and decide whether that process is going to be acceptable for what they market," says Flick. "For a company to come in and use the services is fairly inexpensive to see if the technology works for them," he adds. Depending on what a company hopes to accomplish, H.P.P. isn't always the best solution, and Flick says he might recommend a company invest in another solution.

In some cases, he says shelf life can be doubled, depending on the product and the amount of bacteria load on the product when treated. "When you bring in a product with a very high plate count and you get a 2- or 3-log reduction, you may not have achieved very much," says Flick.

Certainly, good manufacturing practices before products go into a highpressure chamber pay off in additional shelf life after the products are pressurized. Like Douglas, Flick says H.P.P. is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. "It's kind of an empirical science. I don't think we can do any predictive models," he says. "You put the product in and see what happens and from there you can kind of play around with it."

Mainstreaming technology

One of the only other H.P.P. equipment manufactures is Madrid, Spainbased NC Hyperbaric. Its systems first went commercial in 1998 at a Campofrio Alimentación ham processing plant in Spain. Soon after the technology was adopted there, an engineer within the plant mentioned to an NC official that the technology showed a lot of promis