Oranges - Tropical and Subtropical Fruits: Postharvest Physiology, Processing and Packaging - page 394

Nonthermal processing technologies
Nonthermal pasteurization of orange juice using high hy-
drostatic pressure, high-pressure homogenization, pulsed
electric fields, supercritical carbon dioxide, and other tech-
nologies has been researched (Parish, 1998; Zook et al.,
1999; Min et al., 2003; Bull et al., 2004; Plaza et al., 2006;
Ferrentino et al., 2009; Welti-Chanes et al., 2009). However,
only high hydrostatic pressure processed juice is commer-
cially available as a specialty juice with a relatively small
niche market in the United States. A large fruit juice pro-
cessor in Mexico also produces a high-pressure processed
orange juice. The capital cost of such an innovative tech-
nology is high and in most cases not amenable to the size
of large orange processors whose large equipment capital
investment is already spent in thermal processing.
Juice can either be concentrated and frozen or stored re-
frigerated as NFC single strength. FCOJ was developed in
the mid-1940s in response to the need to provide a good
source of vitamin C to US allies after World War II. FCOJ
was less expensive to ship abroad and across the continen-
tal United States. The demand for FCOJ increased steadily,
and by 1970 it represented 78% of the US orange juice
market. During the 1970s ready-to-serve (RTS) chilled or-
ange juice was commercialized, reaching 34% by the end of
the decade. As the RTS juice consumption increased during
the 1980s, in an effort to differentiate product from concen-
trated juice, advertisement of NFC was initiated. Between
the late 1980s and late 2000s, the NFC share of the orange
juice market increased from about 12% to over 50%. The
FCOJ share decreased from over 40% to about 8%, and
the reconstituted orange juice market remained practically
constant at around 40% (Morris, 2010b).

Frozen concentrate orange juice
To produce FCOJ, juice is concentrated from about 12 ◦ Brix
to 65 ◦ Brix in thermally accelerated short time evapora-
tors (TASTE). TASTEs are 5-7 effect falling film evap-
orators. The capacity of these evaporators ranges from
14,000-91,000 kg/hr of evaporated water. Juice homog-
enization to reduce viscosity and facilitate flow of product
at the last stages of evaporation (40 ◦ -45 ◦ Brix) is not un-
common. Fig. 21.6 shows two TASTE evaporators. Since
the juice is stripped from all aroma volatile compounds
during evaporation, essence oil and aqueous aroma must
be added back to FCOJ. Prior to storage in 190,000 to
950,000 liter tanks about 0.01% cold-pressed oil is added
to the concentrate, and it is chilled to

Figure 21.6. Two different models of thermally
accelerated short time evaporators (TASTE).

FCOJ tanks are kept cold in refrigerated rooms. Large pro-
cessing plants have over 76,000 m 3 storage capacities for
65 ◦ Brix concentrate. Concentrate can also be stored in 200-
liter drums. Concentrate is marketed as reconstituted juice

9 ◦ C. The headspace
of FCOJ tanks is flushed with nitrogen to remove oxy-
gen and to minimize oxidative reactions during storage.

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