Egg white is widely used as an ingredient in the food industry owing to its excellent functional properties. The transformation of shell eggs into safe liquid, frozen, or spray-dried egg white with extended shelf life requires many technological operations that result in modifications to the egg white's functional properties. The present study highlights the critical steps affecting foaming and gelling properties during a classical pasteurised liquid egg white process. The main source of variation in functional properties was raw material quality, accounting for 70% of the variability. Part of the remaining 30% was explained by mechanical egg white-yolk separation, tank storage, pasteurisation and homogenisation that resulted in damage to the functional properties, whereas initial flow through pipes and pumping resulted in their improvement. The effects of these steps could be grouped according to the type of treatment undertaken. Dry matter content, pH and treatment intensity at each step contributed about 30% of the variability in functional properties due to processing steps. Relationships between the modifications of egg white functional properties and protein conformation were established. Between 46 and 78% of the variability in functional properties can be explained by protein denaturation, temperature and enthalpy changes.

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