In real-time stability testing, a product is stored at recommended storage conditions and monitored until it fails the specification. Shelf life is commonly estimated by two different stability testing procedures: realtime stability tests and accelerated stability tests. Therefore, according to the in force EU legislation, the shelf life, called “date of minimum durability”, is applicable to foods that are not highly perishable and do not constitute an immediate danger to human health. According to Regulation (UE) 1169/2011, “in the case of foods which, from a microbiological point of view, are highly perishable and are therefore likely after a short period to constitute an immediate danger to human health, the date of minimum durability shall be replaced by the ‘use by’ date”. The shelf life is then the amount of time in which a food product is considered acceptable for consumption when stored at the appropriate storage conditions. The food product must preserve in that period its own chemical, physical, microbiological and sensorial characteristics and, where appropriate, comply with any label declaration of nutritional information when stored according to the recommended conditions (Man, 2002). The shelf life is the time in which the product remains, after manufacture and packing, safe and suitable to use, in defined storage conditions. All foods are composed by biological material undergoing to degradation or spoilage beyond a certain period of time this deterioration belongs to that processes that cannot be fully blocked. In accelerated shelf life tests, the chemical, biochemical and microbiological changes may be induced in shorter time, that it would not otherwise occur. For the chilled foods sector, although the shelf lives are much shorter, they might extend to weeks and it has been demanded to determine the shelf-life in less than half of this time or shorter. For ambient stable products with long shelf life, commercial pressure means it is rarely feasible for full shelf life evaluations to have been completed prior to product launch (Campden Bri, 2014). Part of the product development cycle is to set a suitable shelf life. The product shelf life was assessed at 26 days vs the 30 days expected by the manufacturer, showing the possibility to apply successfully ASLT for products having short shelf life, saving both time and money.Īll sectors of the food and drink industry are under increasing pressure to rapidly develop and launch new and innovative products to maintain market share. Q 10 and activation energy were calculated allowing to obtain a predictive evaluation of the product shelf life at the 4☌ recommended temperature. Different samples of the product were stored in thermal abuse conditions, collected periodically and subjected to determinations of TVB-N, pH and sensorial characteristics. The aim of the study was directed to verify the possibility to apply an accelerated shelf life test to perishable food products having a short-expected shelf life, such as a new ready-to-eat processed food preparation, composed mainly by cereals, tuna and chicken, packed in thermo-sealed trays and pasteurised. Conversely, accelerated shelf life tests can be successfully used for stable products having long expected shelf life. The most direct way to estimate the shelf life of a product is to conduct simulation tests which are time consuming and expensive.
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