51 Influence of Thermoforming Films on Surface Color in Vacuum Packaged Ground Beef

Abstract

With meat industry efforts focused on improving environmental influencers, adopting alternative packaging films may allow the meat industry to address the sustainability demands of the consumer. The current study evaluated instrumental surface color changes on fresh ground beef using vacuum packaging films identified as recycle ready (RRF), standard barrier (STB) and enhanced barrier (ENB). Coarse ground beef (80:20) was purchased from a commercial processing facility, ground once through a 3.18 mm plate and portioned into 454 g bricks. Ground beef bricks were allocated randomly to one of three packaging treatments (n = 25 packages/treatment), placed into a form and fill pouch, vacuum sealed, and displayed in a three-tiered retail display cabinet (3 °C ± 1.5 °C) for a 21-day simulated retail display period. Ground beef packages were rotated daily for the duration of the 21-d study among all shelves of the display cabinet. On each day of the display period, packages were scanned three times with a hand-held colorimeter (HunterLab) to capture instrumental color readings for lightness (L*), redness (a*), yellowness (b*), Hue angle, Chroma, and spectral wavelength values (400 to 700nm) to calculate relative values of Red:Brown (630:580nm), deoxymyoglobin (DEO), oxymyoglobin (OXY), and metmyoglobin (MET). Calculations of relative myoglobin forms were completed using the log of the reflectance values at 473, 525, 572, and 700nm respectively. Ground beef packaged using ENB barrier film was lighter (L*), redder (a*) and more vivid (Chroma) than all other packaging treatments during the simulated display period (P < 0.05). By day 12 of the simulated retail display, ground beef surface color became lighter (L*), more yellow (b*), less red (a*), less vivid (chroma) and contained greater forms of calculated metmyoglobin, oxymyoglobin (P < 0.05). These results suggest that vacuum packaging of ground beef remains a plausible option for extending surface color during fresh shelf-life conditions.