Multivariate accelerated shelf-life testing: a novel approach for understanding the shelf-life of edible mushrooms

Abstract

This project deals with the determination of the shelf-life of Agaricus bisporus, one of the most widely consumed mushrooms in the world. By storing these mushrooms at 5, 15 and 25 ºC, the effects of temperature were studied with 4 parameters: weight loss rate, ATR-FTIR spectrum PCA scores, green color change PCA scores and dark to white pixel ratio. These variables were measured over the span of 15 days to apply Accelerated Shelf-Life Testing (ASLT) and Multivariate Accelerated Shelf-Life Testing (MASLT) methodologies in order to estimate the kinetic parameters of the degradation reactions. ASLT yielded a shelf life of 10.88-12.09 days at 5 ºC, 4.13-8.53 days at 15 ºC and 4.51-4.52 days at 25 ºC and a global energy of activation of 30.6-34.6 kJ/mol. Univariate results were inconclusive and could not be calculated for the image related parameters, as they do not follow a discernible kinetic pattern. MASLT yielded a shelf life of 12.6 days at 5 ºC, 4.1 days at 15 ºC and 3.4 days at 25 ºC, with an energy of activation of 56.7 kJ/mol. This method based on PCA did allow the images’ information to be used, thus proved a more effective tool to transform parameters with non-linear kinetic pattern into useful usable information. Further research is needed, but it is a promising line of investigation that can be applied to other substances