Multivariate accelerated shelf-life testing: a novel approach for determining the shelf-life of foods

• Published in: Journal of chemometrics 2006-01, Vol.20 (1-2), p.76-83
• Main Authors: Pedro, André M. K., Ferreira, Márcia M. C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemistry; chemometrics; Consumer attitudes; Exact sciences and technology; food degradation; Food processing industry; General and physical chemistry; kinetics; Multivariate analysis; principal component analysis; Principal components analysis; Product quality; sensory analysis; Studies
• ISSN: 0886-9383; 1099-128X
• DOI: 10.1002/cem.995

In order to meet consumers' expectations for high‐quality products, food industries must conduct shelf‐life studies that many times include the assessment of several analytical and sensory properties. However, whenever a new product is to be launched onto the market, defining which are the most relevant properties to monitor, as well as their cut‐off criterion, is the subject of strong debate. Besides, for products with long estimated shelf‐lives, accelerated studies have to be conducted and a third parameter has to be estimated: the acceleration factor which defines the correlation between the different storage conditions. In this study we propose a new approach for determining the shelf‐life of industrialised food products, the Multivariate Accelerated Shelf‐Life Test (MASLT), in which a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is performed and the scores of the time‐related components are taken for estimating the multivariate rate constants (km), the multivariate acceleration factor (αm) and the multivariate activation energy (Eam). The method was successfully applied to a single‐concentrated industrialised tomato product for which the actual shelf‐life was estimated to be 28 months. Pseudo‐zero‐order kinetics resulted in the multivariate parameters α35,25m = 2.7 and Eam = 150 kJ·mol−1. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.