A new method for accelerated shelf-life prediction for frozen foods

Shelf-life estimation for frozen foods can be a long process because of the long duration of shelf-life at the lower temperatures of storage. A variety of rapid procedures have been proposed to suggest whether products will have acceptable shelf-lives at low storage temperatures. These all have limitations. In this paper a new procedure is proposed which involves direct determination of shelf-lives at the more elevated frozen storage temperatures, where change is more rapid. This is coupled with utilisation of information on the mobility temperature to establish a lowtemperature storage datum. A plot of expected shelf-life as a function of temperature is produced using these two data sources. The effectiveness of the procedure is validated using existing literature data and newly generated data. The procedure allows for the effective estimation of the lowtemperature storage life of a product utilising data collected on the product in question. It requires around 60 days, while effectively estimating the storage temperatures required to achieve target shelf-lives of 1 year, 18 months, 2 years or even longer.