Training of SMEs for frozen food shelf life testing and novel smart packaging application for cold chain monitoring

Abstract

Application of an optimized cold chain management system for frozen products can be assisted by monitoring with Time Temperature Integrators (TTI). TTI are smart labels that cumulatively show the product history in an easily measurable, time-temperature dependent change. In the IQ-Freshlabel European project enzymatic and photochromic TTI were developed and tested for frozen products. Further to the technical objectives, training activities were implemented to provide information and training to the staff of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) regarding the properties of the developed TTI and their utilization within food packaging, transport, storage and sale. In total, more than 276 European companies and consumers representing the frozen food industry, the packaging industry and food business operators were successfully trained. The objective of the present article is to describe a general methodology for frozen food shelf life testing and modelling, and the selection of appropriate TTI for specific foods. This document serves as a technical manual for SMEs, including a case study for frozen shrimp and application of enzymatic and photochromic TTI, aiming to build their capacities to understand and use TTI for frozen food products. The value of systematic modelling of the food quality kinetics as well as the response of the TTI in building an effective chill chain management system is also demonstrated. The TTI response study allows a reliable optimization and selection of TTI to be correlated to the target food product for which accurate information on temperature dependence is available.

Quality and Shelf-Life Modeling of Frozen Fish at Constant and Variable Temperature Conditions

“…For yellowfin tuna slices, the respective E a values were calculated as 69.4 ± 3.5 ( R 2 = 0.995) and 77.9 ± 13.7 kJ/mol ( R 2 = 0.942) for taste and overall acceptability ( Table 1 ). It has been reported that the ± 20 kJ/mol of the activation energy of the selected quality index of the target food product could be considered as similar temperature dependence [ 6 ].…”

“…The selected quality indices, sampling frequency and duration of experiments were based on literature review and preliminary experiments conducted on relevant frozen seafood products. The frequency and duration of samplings was selected so as to obtain 5–10 measurements (triplicate samples) during storage for each isothermal experiment [ 6 ].…”

“…In order to validate the applicability of the mathematical models obtained from the isothermal experiments to the actual time-temperature conditions, a variable scenario (Var) was applied, which consisted of repeated cycles of three successive temperature steps of −12 °C for 24 h, −5 °C for 36 h and −8 °C for 24 h, in a temperature programmable control cabinet (Sanyo MIR 153, Sanyo Electric Co, Ova-Gun, Gunma, Japan). The time-temperature scenario was selected in order to simulate abuse cold chain conditions of frozen storage [ 5 , 6 ]. Temperature in the incubators was constantly monitored with electronic, programmable miniature data loggers (COX TRACER ® , Belmont, NC, USA).…”

“…In current practice, this is usually handled by reporting on the packages of frozen food arbitrary disclaimers, stating that if the food is stored always at −18 °C (which in practice rarely occurs), then the expiry date is valid. However, at any other temperature, the food has a significantly shorter shelf life (for example, 2 months for frozen shrimp stored at −8 °C compared to 25 months if stored at −18 °C) [ 6 ].…”

Food Cold Chain in Indonesia during the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Current Situation and Mitigation

“…This will result in two things in cold food chains such as decreasing quality of cold chain products and increasing storage costs. Cold chain food is one product that needs special treatment because some of them are easily damaged (agile) and has a short shelf life (Tsironi, Giannoglou, Platakou, & Taoukis, 2015). The quality of food cold chain would decrease by time in a shorter period than other commercial products.…”