Quality by design for packaging of granola breakfast product

Quality by Design (QbD) considers both the critical product characteristics and the environmental variables to design an optimum packaging system. This study applied the QbD approach for packaging and shelf-life determination of Granola by i) determining the water vapour transmission rate (WVTR) of packaging films at different environmental conditions, ii) develop and validate a shelf-life model of packed granola breakfast product and iii) predict shelf-life of packed Granola. The WVTR of packaging films (BOPP and biodegradable films, i.e., NK, NM, N913) was measured according to a full factorial experimental design (32), i.e., 10, 30, 40 °C; 32.5 ± 0.5, 75.5 ± 0.5, 92.5 ± 3.5% RH, and a mathematical model was developed. Granola breakfast product was packed (using the mentioned materials and also a commercial packaging film-control), stored under accelerated conditions (38 °C and 90% RH) and assessed for moisture content (critical quality parameter). A shelf-life model was developed and validated for Granola describing the relationship of the food, packaging and environmental conditions, and shelf-life was inferred for normal storage conditions. The developed WVTR global model considering the dependency of temperature and relative humidity was found to fit the experimental data well (R2 > 0.914). Granola moisture gain was the lowest in BOPP package followed by biodegradable N913 package. The shelf-life for Granola under accelerated conditions ranged from 2 to 13 days depending on the packaging film, and under normal storage conditions (20 °C and 75% RH) was 271, 269, 90, and 33 days for BOPP, N913, NK and NM packages, respectively.