In Search of the Holy Grail of Food Processing : Technology: Foodco Corp. believes it’s finally found a method for cold-pasteurizing liquid products.

With its coils of copper tubing, the experimental device in a back room at Foodco Corp. of San Diego resembles a high-tech still. But the device won’t be used to cook up moonshine.

Foodco, using financial support from two of the world’s leading food-processing companies, is developing a technology that can pasteurize liquid food products that don’t lend themselves to existing pasteurization techniques.

A cold-pasteurization process for liquid food products has long been “something of a Holy Grail in the (food-processing) industry,” said Foodco President and Chief Operating Officer Wayne Clark. “We think our CoolPure process will do just that.”

Existing pasteurization processes, which are heat-driven, often dissipate the texture, flavor or nutritional value of delicate food products. Foodco is banking that its CoolPure research will lead to a cool-pasteurization process that is safe, quick and environmentally benign.

Foodco’s CoolPure research is grounded in the pulsed-power electrical-systems research that Maxwell Laboratories has conducted for largely military purposes.

Foodco, a subsidiary of Maxwell, was formed four years ago after Maxwell was approached by General Foods USA and Sweden’s Tetra Pak Alpha Laval Group, a leader in the food-packaging industry. Tetra Pak and General Foods USA, which is a subsidiary of Chicago-based Kraft General Foods, subsequently acquired minority interests in Foodco.

Maxwell is a leader in systems that store--and rapidly release--tremendous amounts of electrical energy. Military officials have high hopes for pulsed-power weapons, including anti-armor tank guns, field artillery and anti-missile defense systems.

Maxwell began researching commercial and industrial applications for its pulsed-power technologies during the mid-1980s. That emphasis on non-military products gained additional relevance earlier this month when declining military orders forced Maxwell to lay off 63 of its 700 San Diego-based employees.

Foodco’s 12 employees have headquarters at an industrial park near Montgomery Field. The company is developing two separate technologies that are based in Maxwell’s military work.

The CoolPure system uses electrical fields to pasteurize liquids. The system utilizes proprietary Maxwell systems that store and quickly release tremendous amounts of electrical power. For competitive reasons, the company declined to say which sorts of foods its process is being used for.

Foodco is also developing PureBright, an allied technology that use powerful but extremely fast flashes of “white light” to sterilize the surface of food-packaging materials. The light, which resembles intense bursts of sunlight, is generated, stored and released by Maxwell-designed systems.

Foodco envisions PureBright as a replacement for chemical-based sterilization techniques that, in addition to creating environmental concerns, can be costly and time-consuming. Foodco and its partners expect that PureBright will eventually be cleared by federal regulators for use in food-sterilization applications.

As is the case with existing pasteurization and sterilization techniques, PureBright and CoolPure technologies kill bacteria and microbes that cause food-borne illnesses. Foodco’s technologies are also designed to eliminate bacteria that can dramatically shorten a food’s shelf life.

Although the technologies could be used to extend the shelf life of existing products, they might also help to make possible a new generation of ready-to-drink beverages and ready-to-eat foods.

Those new products could be manufactured using existing heat-based pasteurization and sterilization processes, but all too often “you end up cooking products to death,” said Mark Kettunen, General Foods USA’s director of technical strategies.

General Foods allied itself with Foodco “because we see (CoolPure and PureBright) as two very clean ways of reducing microorganisms in food,” Kettunen said. “What we want is food that’s as natural as possible.”

Clark, who declined to estimate the size of the food-processing market, said existing packaging market opportunities amount to a $50-million industry.

Food industry observers said Foodco’s eventual success in the processing industry will depend largely upon how consumers react to the new technology. And consumer acceptance will be driven largely by how fast large food-processing companies embrace the technologies.

“There’s going to be an educational process, where (Foodco and food-processing companies) educate the public to make sure people understand the benefits of the processes . . . how they interact with food,” said Manuel Lagunas-Solar, a senior research radiochemist at Crocker Nuclear Laboratory at the University of California, Davis.

Foodco and its partners believe that PureBright and CoolPure are strong enough to kill unwanted bacteria but leave the food products intact.

Foodco and its financial backers are trying to distance CoolPure and PureBright from food irradiation, a controversial technique that has been cleared for a limited number of food industry applications by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Food irradiation uses electromagnetic rays generated by radioisotopes or neutron beam accelerators to kill bacteria. Federal regulators have approved irradiation for use on grains, produce and spices--and are about to approve its use on poultry--but the technique has generated strong opposition from some consumer groups.

Lagunas-Solar said irradiation won’t gain popular acceptance until it is endorsed by a major food processor. “A fairly high-level food industry executive told me years ago that (they) all agree (irradiation) is feasible and desirable,” Lagunas-Solar said. “The problem is, they need to sell it to the consumer.”

Florida resident Sam Whitney disputes claims by consumer activists who allege that food irradiation, which kills harmful food-borne bacteria and insects, renders food unsafe.

“I’ve got 14 grandchildren, and we’re selling stuff in our (grocery) markets that could kill them,” said Whitney, chairman of Tampa-based Vindicator Inc., which uses very low-level radiation to sterilize a variety of Florida-grown fruits and vegetables. “If we can irradiate foods and kill bacteria that can kill your children or grandchildren, then we should do it.”

Given federal regulators’ decision to classify food irradiation as a food additive rather than a process, Lagunas-Solar predicted that one or both of Foodco’s technologies also might be classified as an additive.

“Having sanctioned irradiation as an additive, which was a mistake, I hope that regulators don’t make the same mistake” with Foodco’s technologies, Lagunas-Solar said. Foodco “really isn’t adding anything . . . because an additive is something that leaves a residue and is detectable. This is just a form of energy, like heating or cooling.”