Virgin olive oil processing by high voltage electrical discharge or high hydrostatic pressure

We test the application of two emerging technologies to virgin olive oil (VOO) pro-cessing. high voltage electrical discharge (HVED) was tested at 20 kV and about 100 kJ/kg of VOO. High- pressure processing (HPP) was applied for 360 s at about 600 MPa. VOO quality indices were evaluated immediately after treatment and after 6 months. The HPP treatment was found to have no negative influence on any aspect (p> .05 according to General Linear Model and the Tukey HSD test). The HVED treat-ment did not affect conventional quality indices (p> .05), but was consistent with the appearance of secondary oxidation products (anisidine value increment of about 50% and rDigs increment of roughly 200%, both at p≤ .05), a significant fall in biophenol concentrations roughly from 5 to 10% at p ≤ .05; and a decrease of about 15% at p ≤ .05 in positive volatiles. Overall, HVED processing appears to negatively impact VOO quality. Novelty impact statement: • For the first time, high voltage electrical discharge (HVED) has been tested on virgin olive oil (VOO) in comparison to high- pressure processing (HPP) over a storage period • While HPP was entirely safe for VOO quality, HVED determines a potential det-rimental effect • Our findings support the application of these technologies to food contain-ing VOO, or for its direct treatment, for instance, to protect against microbial spoilage.