Blanching is an old and well-established practice in the
food industry. Early technological improvements focused
on increasing product quality. Later, process efficiency in
terms of product throughput, energy efficiency, and waste
effluent reduction has been the main concern. Targeting
the right enzyme indicator would reduce blanching time
and tackle all these priorities: improving product quality
(increasing retention of nutrients and other freshlike
quality attributes), reducing energy consumption, and
reducing waste production. However, implementation of
this requires modification of existing equipment to allow
either faster product conveying or shorter pieces of
equipment. Furthermore, food processors and their
customers have been using long-established United States
Department of Agriculture guidelines that suggest the
use of catalase or peroxidase as indicators. Therefore
there is still room for improvement of an apparently
simple technology.