Osmotic treatment of ®sh and meat products Antoine Collignan a, * , Philippe Bohuon a,b , Franc ßois Deumier a , Isabelle Polign e a a CIRAD, Station de la Bretagne, BP 20, 97408 Saint-Denis Messag, R eunion, France b ENSIA-CIRAD, BP 5035, 34032 Montpellier, France Received 1 June 2000; accepted 1 December 2000 Abstract In the review, the mass ¯uxes occurring during the operation are identi®ed and the potential of osmotic treatment OT) as an alternative to conventional processes is evaluated. Product quality development during processing and storage is assessed. Pilot and industrial applications are investigated. In terms of prospects, some future research areas that have not yet been investigated are presented. Ó 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Osmotic treatment; Fish; Meat; Mass transfers; Quality; Engineering 1. Introduction In Northern and Southern countries, meat products meat and ®sheries and aquaculture products) ± when they are not consumed immediately ± are often pro- cessed using a range of traditional techniques involv- ing salting, drying, cooking, smoking and marinating, or a combination of these operations. A few examples of popular traditional meat products are salted pork Europe), kilishi Sahel), biltong South Africa), char- que and carne do sol Brazil), and boucan e R eunion), while traditionally processed ®sh products include smoked salmon and herring France), and dried tilapia Mali). These empirical processes and craftmanship are pas- sed down from generation to generation. They are often long, poorly controlled and generate environmentally detrimental euents. Moreover, food habits are changing and consumers tend to buy milder products new marinades, smoked salmon, etc.) that are not as thoroughly processed and thus have a shorter shel¯ife than the traditional products Bruhn, 1994; Ohlsson, 1994; Gould, Abbe, Granum, & Jones, 1995). Stability problem is enhanced by a bad control of the process because of the sudden switch from traditional small- scale and family processing conditions to high-capacity production units. These traditional processes salting, smoking, mari- nating, etc.) often have a common step in which the product meat or ®sh pieces) is placed in contact with a solution concentrated with solutes salt, sugars, acids, seasonings, etc.). This unit operation is termed osmotic treatment OT). Many scienti®c studies have been pub- lished on OT processing of vegetables, and especially of fruit Ponting, Watters, Forrey, Jackson, & Stanley, 1966; Ponting, 1973; Le Maguer, 1988; Raoult-Wack, Guilbert, & Lenart, 1992; Torreggiani, 1993; Raoult- Wack, 1994; Spiess & Behsnilian, 1998) but, in spite of a wide range of applications Fig. 1), only few studies have been carried out since 1992 to assess OT processing of meat products in concentrated solutions Camirand, Forrey, Popper, Boyle, & Stanley, 1968; Favetto, Chi- rife, & Bartholomai, 1981a; Favetto, Chirife, & Bar- tholomai, 1981b; Muguruma, Katayama, Nakamura, & Yamaguchi, 1987). This four-part paper reviews research that has been carried out on OT processing of ®sh and meat products. The ®rst part focuses on the study of mass transfer that occurs when an animal protein structure is placed in contact with a concentrated solution, with the aim of clarifying the mechanisms involved and evaluating the potential of this technique as an alternative to con- ventional processes. The second part assesses the pro- cess on the basis of product quality development during processing and storage. The third part investigates possible pilot applications of the process, while the fourth part presents successful technological applica- tions. Journal of Food Engineering 49 2001) 153±162 www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng * Corresponding author. Fax: +33-02-6252-8020. E-mail address: antoine.collignan@cirad.fr A. Collignan). 0260-8774/01/$ - see front matter Ó 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0260-877400)00215-6