Introduction to evaporation technology for the food industry

In recent years, consumers’ expectations from packaged foods and beverages have been towards long-lasting and fresh-like tastes. Therefore food technology aims not only to increase production capacities but also to design efficient systems that will ensure minimum quality losses in food. A traditional food processing technique such as evaporation promotes the transportation of foods, as well as microbiologically safe food production and long-term storage. However, due to high-temperature operations, aromatic compounds may be removed, and this may cause negative effects such as loss of flavor or vitamins, and formation of cooked flavor. Therefore, there is need for the development of suitable evaporation systems with new technologies to ensure more efficiency and minimize quality loss in the final product. This chapter gives a brief overview of the basic concepts of the evaporation process, different types and main applications of evaporators in the food industry, and innovative evaporation applications.