For Abstracts

Amodio M.L., Derossi A., Mastrandrea L., Colelli G. (Department of Science of Agricultural, Food and Environment, University of Foggia, Italy)

For fresh-cut products the definition of a representative target attribute for shelf-life estimation is very hard to assess because during storage a wide number of chemical, sensorial and physical attributes degrade at the same time. The aim of this study was to obtain a more reliable shelf life estimation of fresh-cut pineapple by applying the Multivariate Accelerating Shelf life Testing (MASLT). This approach is based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and allows to estimate the shelf life considering several degradation reactions. Fresh-cut pineapple piece were packaged in PP-PE bags (45 µm, 17.5 x 15.5 cm of size; OTR = 940 cm3m2d-1, ß=3.3) in passive modified atmosphere and stored at 3 different temperatures, 0 5 and 15 degrees C. A total variance of 90.7% was explained by three PC components. The PC scores were used to build a multivariate kinetic chart which resumes the information of the degradation of all the quality attributes studied. The changes of PC1 as a function of time were well described by a first-order kinetic for samples stored at 0 ddegrees C and through a zero-order kinetic for those at 5 and 15 degrees C showing correlation coefficient ranging between 0.88 and 0.95. Results showed as texture, color score and appearance score were the most important variable affecting the PC model. Then, establishing a shelf-life limit for each of the attribute included in the model, a cut-off criterion of – 1.33 was calculated defining a shelf-life of 11, 7.9 and 3.1 days for fresh-cut pineapples stored at 0, 5 and 15 degrees C, respectively.