Recently, there has been an increase in demand from consumers for fresh, nutritious, and minimally processed food products. This new trend shifting towards safe and nutritious foods has resulted in the development of new food processing technologies which cause less harm to nutrients, thus improving the product quality without disturbing flavor, appearance, and nutrition. In the past, high temperature processing had been mainly used for various purposes, including to increase food quality and food safety.

Recent advances have led to the utilization of various new processing technologies that not only decrease the impact of high heat processing, through improved heating (such as the use of ohmic heating, spray drying, and microwaves) and non-thermal processing technologies (such as irradiation, high pressure processing, ultrasound extraction, freeze drying and pulse electric fields), but have also resulted in products with more nutrients. Additionally, energy consumption is reduced in non-thermal processing, improving the environmental impact of food processing. Among the novel thermal technologies, one new technique is spray drying, which is used for the production of powder from slurries or liquids using hot gas. This method is preferable for use with thermally sensitive materials such as foods and pharmaceuticals. Among the non-thermal methods used for increasing the shelf life and nutrients content of food products is freeze drying. Due to the low temperature used in processing, the quality of the rehydrated product is excellent, and the original shape of the product is also maintained.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather research into novel food processing techniques to help satisfy the demand for nutritious and minimally processed foods and food products. We welcome both original research and review articles.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Recent food processing technologies to ensure improved food life by enhancing nutrient content and safety
• Novel spray drying technology to produce powders for heat sensitive products
• Use of low temperature (freeze drying) to produce dried powders with heat sensitive ingredients and further utilization for value addition
• Numerous extraction technologies for separating bioactive components from foods for further utilization to prepare designer foods
• Irradiation to ensure food safety and food security
• Use of high-pressure processing technology in the food sector