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Shelf Life

Shelf-life is defined as the time period where a food product remains safe, retains its desired sensory characteristics, and complies with label declarations when stored under recommended conditions. Shelf-life is affected by intrinsic factors like composition and extrinsic factors like storage temperature. Deterioration occurs through microbiological, chemical, physical, and temperature-related processes that interact in complex ways. Shelf-life is measured through sensory, instrumental, physical, chemical, and microbiological tests, and can be predicted using accelerated testing and mathematical models. Efficient experimental designs are needed to determine shelf-life cost-effectively.

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Ebenezer Asiedu-Agyei
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148 views34 pages

Shelf Life

Shelf-life is defined as the time period where a food product remains safe, retains its desired sensory characteristics, and complies with label declarations when stored under recommended conditions. Shelf-life is affected by intrinsic factors like composition and extrinsic factors like storage temperature. Deterioration occurs through microbiological, chemical, physical, and temperature-related processes that interact in complex ways. Shelf-life is measured through sensory, instrumental, physical, chemical, and microbiological tests, and can be predicted using accelerated testing and mathematical models. Efficient experimental designs are needed to determine shelf-life cost-effectively.

Uploaded by

Ebenezer Asiedu-Agyei
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Shelf-life

Enoch Adjei Mensah and Ebenezer Oku-Ampofo Asiedu


What is Shelf-life
• Shelf-life is defined as the time during which the food product will:
(i) remain safe;
(ii) be certain to retain desired sensory, chemical, physical and
microbiological characteristics;
(iii) comply with any label declaration of nutritional data, when
stored under the recommended conditions (IFST Guidelines,1993)
Factors affecting Shelf-life
• Intrinsic
• Extrinsic

• Intrinsic factors are influenced by such variables as raw material type and
quality, and product formulation and structure

• Extrinsic factors are those factors


the final product encounters as it moves through the food chain
Factors affecting Shelf-life cont’d
•Intrinsic
•Water activity (aw) (available water).

• pH value and total acidity; type of acid.

• Redox potential (Eh).

• Available oxygen.
Intrinsic

• Nutrients.

• Natural microflora and surviving microbiological counts.

• Natural biochemistry of the product formulation (enzymes,


chemical
reactants).

• Use of preservatives in product formulation (e.g. salt)


Factors affecting Shelf-life cont’d
• Extrinsic
• Time–temperature profile during processing; pressure in the
headspace.

• Temperature control during storage and distribution.

• Relative humidity (RH) during processing, storage and distribution.

• Exposure to light (UV and IR) during processing, storage and


distribution.
Extrinsic
• Environmental microbial counts during processing, storage and
distribution.

• Composition of atmosphere within packaging.

• Subsequent heat treatment (e.g. reheating or cooking before


consumption).

• Consumer handling
Deteriorative Interaction and Processes
• All these factors can operate in an interactive and often unpredictable
way

• The interaction of such intrinsic and extrinsic factors inhibits or


stimulates a number of processes which limit shelf-life. These
processes can be classified as:

• Microbiological.
• Chemical.
• Physical.
• Temperature-related
Microbiological deteriorative Processes
Microbiological deteriorative Processes
Chemical deteriorative Processes
• Rancidity -development in fat-containing foods, and can occur via different mechanisms, for
example lipolytic/hydrolytic reactions

• oxidative reactions and flavour reversion reactions

• Enzymic processes limit the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables

• oxidation reactions limit the shelf-life of meat

• Chemical hydrolysis can occur in products containing intense sweeteners, reducing sweetness

• non-enzymic browningcan occur in many foods from Maillard reactions


Physical deteriorative processes
• Moisture migration
• permeability changes with time can change the in-pack
equilibrium
atmosphere
• Migration of chemical components from the packaging
material can also produce taints, and this can be
particularly serious in products with a long shelf-life
Temperature-related deteriorative changes

• Deterioration can occur at both elevated and depressed


temperatures
• Increasing the temperature generally increases the rate of
chemical reactions that may result in deterioration

• In foods containing fats, more solid fat will become liquid


and
act as a solvent for reactions in the oil phase, and changes
in fat crystallinity can occur, for example producing bloom
in chocolate
Temperature-related deteriorative changes
• Increased temperature can also change the crystallization
characteristics of foods containing sugar syrups.

• Fluctuating temperatures can cause ice crystal formation in


frozen foods such as ice-cream

• In contrast, increased temperatures can reduce the


development of staling in bread, although the situation with
other baked foods can be complex and unpredictable
Measuring shelf-life

• Sensory panels
• Instrumental methods
• Physical measurements
• Chemical measurements
• Microbiological measurements
Measuring shelf-life cont’d
•Instrumental methods

•computerised texture analysers

•Rheometers

•volatile detectors (measuring flavour properties)

•Likens–Nickerson apparatus (The flavour extracts can then be fractionated by high


resolution gas chromatography)

•hygrometers
Physical Measurements
Predicting shelf-life

• Accelerated shelf-life testing


• Predictive models
Accelerated shelf-life testing
• The basic premise of an accelerated test is that by changing a storage
condition, the chemical or physical process that leads to deterioration
is accelerated, and that a predictive shelf-life relationship related to
ambient conditions can be defined.

• The key to this premise is the assumption that the deteriorative


process limiting shelf-life remains the same under the two conditions.
Predictive models
• The food industry has long been interested in ways of predicting
rates of deteriorative change resulting from differing
combinations of intrinsic and extrinsic factors.

• Predictive models look for statistical and mathematical


relationships between three sets of variables: intrinsic (product-
related) factors; extrinsic (environmental) factors; and implicit
factors, the characteristics of the microorganism itself and how it
behaves in the presence of combinations of intrinsic and extrinsic
factors.
Predictive models
• Such models need to be based on good experimental data
mapping rates of change within given combinations of
factors.

• The data from these shelf-life experiments are analysed for


statistical patterns and mathematical relationships from
which a model can be built.
Predictive models
•Software systems

•Food MicroModel : Food MicroModel is a Windows software package consisting of mathematical models
that enables users to predict the safety of foods using a personal computer
•Pathogen Modeling Program: The Pathogen Modeling Program was developedby the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) Eastern Regional Research Centre as a result of research on predictive
microbiolog
•Other softwares are: Pseudomonas Predictor, Seafood Spoilage Predictor,
Decision Support System, Forecast, ERH CALC, MIRINZ software
The design of shelf-life experiments

•The experimental determination of shelf-life can require a considerable

amount of experimentation, with consequent costs and demands on time.

•Efficient design of such experiments is important if such tests are to be

cost-effective.

•Three variant designs are used namely;

1.Partially staggered design

2.Staggered design
The design of shelf-life experiments cont’d
• Partially staggered design by Gacula (1975)
a single batch of product is put on test at time zero, and
samples are taken off for testing at intervals determined by
the expectation of the probable shelf-life. Mostly used when
there is prior information about shelf-life
The design of shelf-life experiments cont’d
• Staggered design
• sufficient samples at each time point are collected, therefore requiring
extensive experimentation. In a variant of this procedure the number of
samples tested is increased up to the acceleration point, at which failure is
expected, and after which a constant number of samples is tested uses an
expansion in sample numbers determined by the number of failed units.
This give clear picture of deteriorative change
Extending of shelf-life
• Raw material selection and quality.

• Product formulation and assembly.

• The processing environment.

• Processing and preservation techniques


• Packaging.

• Storage and distribution.

• Consumer handling.

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