Brief Notes on Accelerating Methods for Shelf Life Prediction

Food Processing and Storage is an important part in the food industry as it helps in keeping the food fresh than the ideal hours and retains the nutrients and other essential elements using various shelf-life prediction methods. Moreover, a good shelf life prediction helps in determining the preservation process of different food products and helps making them available to the consumers immediately and efficiently.

Shelf Life Prediction

The need to monitor the freshness of the food has prompted the development of shelf-life prediction technology. Static testing is currently the most popular method of determining shelf life. This entails putting food on a shelf and expecting it to rot. However, this is inefficient, results in extra food waste, and is inaccurate. Fresh produce may now be assessed and its shelf life can be determined using new technology.

Businesses profit from shelf-life prediction at every stage of the supply chain. Artificial intelligence has also made shelf-life prediction powerful and accessible.

Shelf-Life Testing Methods

Pre-requisites of the Accelerated Shelf-Life Testing Methods

Accelerated shelf-life testing requires the following prerequisites:

• Define crucial analytical criteria (such as Vitamin C, moisture content, and other characteristics that vary depending on the product), key sensory attributes, and microbial standards.
• For the test, collect the required volume of a representative sample.
• Keep a few samples for real-time research. 
• Set the sample collection frequency.
• Carry out the test.

Direct Methods

These are authentic studies in which the product is stored under similar conditions as those in the field and its evolution is tracked at regular intervals. The main benefit of this method is that it produces a very accurate estimate of how long it takes for a commodity to deteriorate; nevertheless, these studies typically take a while and do not consider the fact that product storage conditions are not consistent over time.

Challenge Test

This method entails inadvertently introducing diseases or microbes into food during the manufacturing process, exposing the product to the conditions it will face on field. The main issue of this test is that it considers only the impacts of the examined parameters, and overlooks the fact that the thing may be exposed to several influences simultaneously. Furthermore, these are investigations that are both complicated and difficult to carry out.

Accelerated Shelf Life Test

Temperature, oxygen pressure, and moisture content are all altered in these experiments to speed up the spoiling responses of a product. These predictions help one to forecast how foods will behave under various settings and anticipate their change over time. Accelerated testing allows the addition of changing environmental circumstances as well as variations in the concentrations of the substances they are made up of. These studies are extremely flexible, low-cost to the manufacturer, and provide assessment of several scenarios. There is some error margin in the produced results because it is not a perfect representation of reality.

Survival Method

It is a sort of research based on a consumer’s perception of a product’s physical qualities. This strategy attempts to establish a link between the product’s shelf life and its perceived quality. Although it is not a reliable approach for estimating the shelf life, it is necessary to use it in conjunction with other methods to determine a product’s best by date.

Microbiology Testing

Based on modelling and simulation, this research investigates the various microbial reactions of foods to diverse environmental conditions to anticipate the behaviour of the microbes in the product. This form of analysis, which is commonly employed when designing a new product, considers the product’s possible changing conditions; nevertheless, it has two key drawbacks: it adds complexity to the manufacturer’s work and the conclusions are based on a simulation that may or may not be correct.

Accelerated Shelf-Life Calculation Method

The kinetic model approach is the most frequent method for doing an accelerated shelf-life calculation. Its procedure entails:

• Choosing kinetic parameters to speed up the deterioration process
• Continuous investigation of the deteriorating process at such high levels of accelerating elements that deterioration occurs quickly
• Extrapolate data to a standard storage environment
• Predict shelf life using extrapolation data

Conclusion

The goal of shelf-life testing is to offer an objective standard of the quality parameters that define the food and the point at which it fails. This failure occurs when the meal has microbiological, chemical, physical, or sensory properties that the customer finds unsatisfactory. These methods are useful in food processing and other industries.