To provide a sterilizer for granular food making it possible to shorten contact time with moisture-containing processed material sensitive to heat, and structured so as not to give excess heat except when sterilizing the processed material.
In the sterilizer for granular food, granular food G is continuously conveyed in one direction while put on a porous conveyer in a horizontal posture or a posture similar thereto. The granular food flows perpendicularly to the conveying direction under the condition of preventing contact with air, momentarily comes in contact with normally pressured or decreasingly pressured superheated steam SS. The granular food G and a cooling space CL structured so that the granular food G made contact with the flow of the superheated steam SS is immediately brought into contact with cold air CW to be momentarily cooled.