Cold Chain Management Group Department Preventive Health Management

A predictive shelf life model as a tool for the improvement of quality management in pork and poultry chains
Stefanie Bruckner, Antonia Albrecht, Verena Raab, Rolf Ibald, Brigitte Petersen and Judith Kreyenschmidt

ICPMF 7 Dublin 2011

Background
Background and aim

Prediction of remaining shelf important to prevent food waste and economic losses mathematical models (predictive microbiology) Majority of predictive models based on data obtained in liquid broth Only a few models existing which are applicable for different types of fresh meat and at dynamic temperature conditions

Aim of the study development of a common predictive shelf life model for fresh pork and fresh poultry based on the growth of Pseudomonas spp.

Study design
Materials and methods

Storage tests for the characterisation of microbiological spoilage of fresh pork and poultry intrinsic factors pH-value, aw-value, texture, glucose, lactate, fat, protein constant temperature conditions 2, 4, 7, 10, 15 C dynamic temperature conditions 9 scenarios

Development and validation of the model

Development of the software

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Storage tests
Materials and methods

Product: Sliced pork loins (ca. 200 g), poultry fillets (ca. 150 g)

Storage atmosphere Aerobic

Investigated parameters: Total Viable Count (pour plate technique, plate count agar, 72 h at 30C) Pseudomonas spp. count (spread plate technique, Pseudomonas Agar Base + CFC supplement, 48 h at 25C) Sensory characteristics (colour, odour, texture; 3-point scoring system, weighted sensory index)
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Modelling
Materials and methods

Primary model: Gompertz-Model:

N (t ) = A + C e

e B( t M )

N(t): microbial count [cfu/g] at time t B: relative growth rate at time M [1/h] A: initial bacterial count [cfu/g] M: reversal point [h] C: difference between Nmax (= maximum population level) and A [cfu/g] t: time [h] (Gibson et al., 1987)

Secondary model: Arrhenius Model

Ea 1 ln(B ) = ln (F ) R T

B: relative growth rate at time M [1/h] F: pre-exponential factor [1/h] R: gas constant = 8.314 J/mol K T: absolute temperature [K] Ea: activation energy for bacterial growth [kJ/mol]

Development of the common predictive model

Material and methods

Combination of primary and secondary model Division of the time-temperature history of the product into several assumed time-temperature intervals with constant storage temperatures Growth can be predicted with the Gompertz model in each interval
Nmax: means of observed maximum bacterial counts A: B: M: observed initial bacterial counts obtained from the Arrhenius plot derived from linear regression of M against temperature for the first interval (calculated with Gompertz for the other intervals)
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Growth of Pseudomonas spp. at constant temperatures (primary modeling)

Results

Good description of Pseudomonas spp. growth with the Gompertz function (R 0.94 for both meat types) High significant correlations between Pseudomonas spp. counts and sensory attributes (r > -0.90; p < 0.05) Determination of a common spoilage level of 7.5 log10 CFU/g

Growth of Pseudomonas spp. at constant temperatures (primary modeling)

Results
Temp. [ C] pork 2 4 7 10 15 0.012 0.018 0.025 0.033 0.051 B [1/h] poultry 0.014 0.020 0.033 0.058 0.103 pork 0.032 0.043 0.054 0.086 0.130 max [1/h] poultry 0.034 0.041 0.081 0.121 0.212 Shelf life [h] pork 165.8 122.2 92.9 75.4 45.5 poultry 126.4 98.6 63.9 41.5 27.1

B and max increasing with increasing storage temperature Longer shelf life for pork than for poultry at all investigated constant storage temperature Comparable decrease of shelf life with increasing temperatures Similar microbiological spoilage processes for fresh pork and fresh poultry at constant storage temperatures
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Arrheniusplot (secondary modeling)

Results

Good description of the temperature dependency of the growth rates with the Arrhenius equation (R = 0.98 for pork, R = 0.99 for poultry)

Model development
Results

Good linearity of the fits of M values against temperature (R = 0.97 for pork, R = 0.94 for poultry) enabled the calculation of an adequate M value for the first interval in dynamic storage scenarios
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Model development
Results

B and M values for poultry could be related to pork values by linear fitting Fits were good with R values of 0.98 (for B) and 0.998 (for M)
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Model validation
Results

Periodically changing temperature (4 h at 12 C, 8 h at 8 C, 12 h at 4 C)

--- temperature profile

observed counts

prediction

--- +/- 10 % 12

Model validation
Results

3 short-term temperature shifts for 4 h to 15 C

--- temperature profile observed counts prediction

--- +/- 10 %

predictions for both meat types matched to the observed Pseudomonas spp. counts as well as observed shelf lives
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Integration of the model in an Internet-based software solution (tertiary modeling)

Results

Allows user-friendly simulations of shelf lives for specific products depending on dynamic and adjustable time-temperature-rows Incorporation of a TTI kinetic model (based on OnVUTM TTIs) for the optimization of cold chain management programmed with the widely known scripting language php and a mysqldatabase compatible with most servers of commercial internet providers, easy to update and administrate Freely accessible at: http://www.ccm-network.com

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Software Simulate Shelf Life

Results

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Simulate Shelf Life - Result

Results

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Quality improvement by TTIs

Results

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Summary
Summary

Similar spoilage processes for fresh pork and fresh poultry enabled the development of a common predictive shelf life model Predictions for both meat types matched to the observations Incorporation of the common shelf life model as well as the TTI kinetic model in a freely accessible software calculation of remaining shelf life of the product at specific control points along the chill chain BUT: still several existing challenges before a practical application

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Thank you for your attention!!

Cold Chain Management Group University of Bonn
www.ccm.uni-bonn.de www.ccm-network.com

The study was partly financed by the EU project Chill-On (FP6-016333-2) and the InterregIIIC project PromSTAP. Thanks to all companies involved as well as to students and technical assistants for supporting the study.

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References

Bruckner, S. (2010). Predictive shelf life model: A new approach for the improvement of quality management in meat chains. PhD thesis, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitt Bonn. Kreyenschmidt, J., Christiansen, H., Huebner, A., Raab, V. & Petersen, B. (2010): A novel photochromic timetemperature indicator to support cold chain management. International Journal of Food Science & Technology, 45, 2, pp. 208 215. Kreyenschmidt, J.; Hbner, A.; Beierle, E.; Chonsch, L.; Scherer, A.;B. Petersen (2010). Determination of the shelf life of sliced cooked ham based on the growth of lactic acid bacteria in different steps of the chain. Journal of Applied Microbiology, 108, 510-520 Raab, V., Petersen, B. & Kreyenschmidt, J. (2011). Temperature monitoring in meat supply chains. British Food Journal 113 (10) (in press). Raab, V. (2011). Assessment of temperature monitoring systems for improving cold chain management in meat supply chains. PhD thesis, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitt Bonn (in press). Raab, V., Ibald, R.; Reichstein, W., Haarer, D. & Kreyenschmidt, J. (2011). Novel solutions supporting inter-organizational quality and information management. In Popov, P. & Brebbia, C.A. (eds.), Proceedings of the Food and Environment 2011, 21-23 June 2011, WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, Vol. 152, WIT Press, New Forest, UK, pp. 177-188 (in press).

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