Acceleratee shelf life testing of spice mixtures. Feasibility and the chemistry behind aging
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master Thesis
Master Thesis
Program
Publicerad
2010
Författare
Lilliebjelke, Torbjörn
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The shelf life of spices and spice mixtures is relatively long compared with other type of foods. Real time testing of new products is not applicable due to the amount of time and cost required. Determination of shelf life is instead done by educated guesses and knowledge from similar products. Accelerated shelf life testing (ASLT) is a method that has been used to predict shelf life of many food products. Exposing the food to extreme conditions by accelerating the degradation mechanism will lead to a shorter time to reach the endpoint of shelf life. Accelerating conditions can be any factors that increase the rate of degradation. The most common example is using temperature. However, an ASLT can be conducted using other factors like; pH, relative humidity, light and oxygen. The objective of the presented master thesis work was to examine the possibility to use ASLT for determination of the shelf life and stability of spices and spice mixtures at Santa Maria AB. The product that was tested was Paneng Red Curry Spice Mix. The relative stability with different packaging materials (glass and laminate bag) was evaluated. The accelerated storage process was done using temperature as the critical factor. The degradation process was studied analytically by Gas Chromatography (GC), and by sensory analysis using the internal panel at Santa Maria AB. The analytical results showed that the degradation process of a number of compounds was accelerated during the ASLT and that the process followed the Arrhenius model for degradation kinetics. The degradation process was different in the glass and laminate bags respectively. The glass bottle with a plastic lid had a lower moisture and oxygen barrier compared to the laminate bag. This resulted in a faster degradation. The sensory testing showed that the stability of the product packed in glass were lower. The analytical measurements showed that the degradation of certain volatiles was increased for the samples packed in glass. Accelerated testing is mostly used to study relatively simple products or products were the shelf life limiting factor is known. The complexity of spice mixtures makes it hard to draw any conclusions about the shelf life of the product after the relatively short period of time applied in the accelerated shelf life testing. My suggestion is that Santa Maria AB can use accelerated testing to measure the stability of specific raw materials to get a better understanding of product stability. It can also be used to test the relative stability of a specific raw material from different suppliers. Testing of more similar packaging material is also one way to use the accelerated method.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Annan kemi , Other Chemistry Topics