Abstract
Although most food companies have a distinct interest in the shelf-life of their food products, little has been done to determine true shelf-life as a function of variable environmental conditions. Research efforts are generally aimed at improving quality with respect to a longer shelf-life. For true shelf-life prediction, especially for refrigerated foods, knowledge of predictive microbiology is needed. Models that describe influences of temperature and water activity on microbial deterioration are compared and the square-root model is found to be the best based on the criteria of r2 and mean square error. Appropriate approaches are presented for prediction of remaining quality or shelf-life of foods undergoing fluctuating temperature conditions. Finally, the Weibull hazard analysis technique for determination of shelf-life is introduced.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 125-133 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Food Control |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1993 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The research was supported in part by a 1992-1993 Graduate Dissertation Fellowship of the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota-South Dakota Dairy Research Center. It is published as paper No. 20 108 of the contribution series of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station.
Keywords
- Shelf-life
- Weibull hazard analysis
- microbial growth
- model
- prediction