The National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), announced that the consortium’s pressure-assisted thermal sterilization (PATS) process, won an IFT Food Expo Innovation Award at the 2009 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo in Anaheim.
PATS is a new food sterilization process that utilizes high pressure to produce temperatures that ensure the production of commercially sterile low-acid food products while significantly improving food quality attributes. The novel process, developed under a Dual Use Science and Technology (DUST) contract, was accepted in February by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a new alternative to commercial sterilization under the low-acid canned food regulations.
Incoming IFT President Marianne Gillette presented the IFT Innovation Award crystal sculpture at the Sunday morning keynote session to C. Patrick Dunne, Ph.D., Senior Advisor in Advanced Processing and Nutritional Biochemistry for the DoD Combat Feeding Directorate of the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center of the Army RDE Command, on behalf of NCFST’s DUST team.
The 2009 IFT Food Expo Innovation Awards program honors outstanding innovation in products, equipment, instrumentation, technology and services. A panel of eight jurors from industry, academia and government reviewed 49 entries based on degree of innovation, technical advancement, benefit to food manufacturers and/or consumers, and scientific merit. Four entries were selected for this year’s award.
