Myth 4: HPP juice is always cold-pressed.Īs I stated above, HPP is not the process of actually making the juice, but rather a secondary processing step. Nutrients in raw juice begin to break down in a matter of days, so I assume this is the same with HPP juice, however I cannot find any data on this so it is only my opinion. It should also be noted that these tests were done immediately after the HPP process, and whether these numbers hold up several weeks later is questionable. Myth 3: HPP doesn’t affect nutritional or enzyme content.Īccording to some studies, HPP has at least a minor affect on nutrient content, with “remaining contents in the range of 87% to 100%.” Enzyme residual activity varies depending on the enzyme being tested and the settings of the HPP process, with majority of residual activity levels “lying in the 20%-60% range.” This is still much less heat than thermal pasteurization temperatures, which are over 160 ☏, although only for about 15 seconds. For example, if the juice goes into the chamber at 45 ☏ then it can reach 77 ☏ for a few minutes while under pressure.

Once the juice is depressurized, it immediately comes back down to its starting temperature (adiabatic cooling). Note: To find the increase in ☏, keep in mind that 1 ☌ = 1.8 ☏, so multiply 18 ☌ x 1.8 ☏ = 32 ☏. This type of heating is called “adiabatic heating.” According to the FDA, “HPP treatment will increase the temperature of foods through adiabatic heating approximately 3 ☌ per 100 MPa.” Juice is pressurized up to 600 MPa, which means that the juice is heated by up to 18 ☌ (32 ☏) from its starting temperature.

When juice or any other liquid is pressurized, there is heat created. “WARNING: This product has not been pasteurized and, therefore, may contain harmful bacteria that can cause serious illness in children, the elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems.” If you are unsure if juice is raw, look for this warning, as it is required by law to put on the label for raw juice: Although it wasn’t against the law to label the product as raw, the plaintiffs claimed that the juice companies were deceiving their customers. There were some lawsuits made public a few years ago when some cold-pressed juice companies were labeling the product as “100% Raw” and “Unpasteurized” even though it had been through HPP. There are many beverage companies who do not put HPP on the label, and some which refer to it under other names such as “Cold-Pressured” or “Pascalization.” Most juice companies choose to put it on the label so consumers know that what they are buying has been processed to make it safer than raw juice. HPP, heat pasteurization, and other preservation methods are not required to go on the juice label in the US. Myth 1: Companies must put HPP on the label if it has been used to process the juice. If the maker is selling direct to consumer, this process is not required. Beyond these benefits, it is actually FDA law that juice must undergo a process like HPP or heat pasteurization in order to be distributed wholesale to re-sellers. The two major benefits are a safer juice product, and that retail stores can keep the juice on their shelf for much longer without it going to waste. When the bottles come out the other end, they now contain almost no living microbial content, and now have a shelf life of about 30-45 days, instead of raw juice which is normally 3-5 days.The pressure maintains between one minute and several minutes depending on settings, then de-pressurizes.To put this pressure in perspective, if you were to tie a rock to a bottle of juice and sink it to the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, you would only achieve 1/5th of the pressure created in an HPP machine.

The plastic bottles of juice are loaded into a giant chamber that fills with water and pressurizes the bottles up to 85,000 PSI.(HPP is not the process of making juice itself, but rather a secondary processing step). Raw juice is made on a juice press or other type of juicer, then bottled in plastic bottles.This is referred to as a “5 log reduction”. HPP is a processing step that extends shelf life and kills at least 99.999% of the microorganisms in juice. Since there is some confusion about the technology I want to describe the process of HPP, dispel a few myths, and finally discuss why HPP is important and how it has helped our industry. If you have purchased a major brand of cold-pressed juice lately, chances are it has undergone the process of HPP (High Pressure Processing).

Pressed juice