High hydrostatic pressure thawing for the processing of fruit preparations from frozen strawberries

High hydrostatic pressure thawing (600 MPa, 25 and 50°C, 15 min) of frozen strawberries was applied as a pretreatment in the thermal processing of strawberry preparations when comparing this process with thawing of strawberries at atmospheric pressure prior to thermal processing (92°C, 20 min) increases in sucrose uptake were observed for strawberry slices (21%) as well as for whole fruit (140%) reaching maximum sucrose contents of 45.6±2.4°Brix and 34.7±0.9°Brix respectively. In addition high pressure treatment of strawberries proved sufficient to reduce total microbial counts by two log cycles.