Danielle Heaney, a graduate student in the lab of Olga Padilla-Zakour, interim director of Cornell AgriTech and director of the Cornell Food Venture Center (CFVC), has been working to improve an American consumer favorite: pickles. Collaborating with the CFVC Pilot Plant, its laboratory analysis services and the Cornell High Pressure Processing Validation Center, she’s developed fresh, delicious clean-label pickles. Her research and product development recently helped her win first place at the Institute of Food Technologists meeting in Chicago, where she competed against students from across the country.
What are you researching?
I am studying high pressure processing (HPP) as an alternate method to process pickles. During HPP, a food product is packaged and put in a chamber where it undergoes immense pressure (greater than that at the bottom of the ocean). This destroys bacteria and ensures the product has a long shelf life.
Commercial pickles are typically processed using heat, but heat destroys some of the fresh flavor, color and texture of cucumbers. One of the major benefits of HPP is that it is gentler on freshlike attributes of food products.
The goal of exploring HPP in my research is to create a pickle that is just as crunchy with a fresh appearance and taste.
Right now, I am looking into the mechanisms behind the textural changes in high pressure processed pickles, with a focus on enzyme activity. In the future, we also plan to conduct a consumer study to understand which attributes of our product are liked by consumers.
How does your research align with food market trends?
The demand for plant-based products is rising, and consumers value high-quality, clean-label products. To meet these demands, we need to start thinking about innovative ways to process products while maintaining quality. Traditional thermal processing methods, like pasteurization, are great for safety and extending a product’s shelf life, but high heat degrades nutrition, flavor and appearance. Non-thermal processing methods, like HPP, have grown in their use because of their ability to produce high-quality products. While HPP is already commonly used in beverages, salsa and dips, and even the seafood industry, it is less commonly used on whole fruits and vegetables. Exploring HPP on a whole vegetable product like pickles opens the door to understanding how we can grow the use of this technology to other applications.
Commercial pickles, specifically, are highly processed and low in nutrition. We hope to use this research as an opportunity to create something with less acidity and less salt, to appeal to consumer trends for healthy and clean-label products.
