Shelf life is defined as the period of time during which a food product:
It remains harmless.
It preserves the desired sensory, physicochemical, microbiological and functional characteristics.
When applicable, it complies with any nutritional or health claim that refers to it, provided that the recommended storage conditions are met.
For this reason, in order to estimate the useful life of a food, it is essential to know the different mechanisms of alteration that will lead to its deterioration, including the loss of organoleptic characteristics that affect the sensory quality of the food, the loss of the nutritional and health properties declared and loss of food safety.
Shelf life studies should be carried out in the following circumstances:
Development of new products/processes or modification of existing ones.
Use of new containers and packaging procedures.
Any significant change in the ingredients, place of production or production equipment.
There are different methods to determine the useful life of food, taking into account its nature, the main deterioration pathways and the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that interact by inhibiting or enhancing the microbiological, physicochemical and sensory reactions that limit the stability time of the products. which can be determined by applying mathematical models.
The determination of the useful life of a food can be carried out in real time or through accelerated estimation methods based on probabilistic and deterministic methods, respectively, and the mathematical modeling of microbial growth.
.png){kind=small}