The stability and shelf-life of a food product are critical to its success in the market place, yet companies experience considerable difficulties in defining and understanding the factors that influence stability over a desired storage period. This book is the most comprehensive guide to understanding and controlling the factors that determine the shelf-life of food products.

Ensuring that foods and beverages remain stable during the required shelf life is critical to their success in the market place, yet companies experience difficulties in this area. Food and beverage stability and shelf life provides a comprehensive guide to factors influencing stability, methods of stability and shelf life assessment and the stability and shelf life of major products.Part one describes important food and beverage quality deterioration processes, including microbiological spoilage and physical instability. Chapters in this section also investigate the effects of ingredients, processing and packaging on stability, among other factors. Part two describes methods for stability and shelf life assessment including food storage trials, accelerated testing and shelf life modelling. Part three reviews the stability and shelf life of a wide range of products, including beer, soft drinks, fruit, bread, oils, confectionery products, milk and seafood.With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, Food and beverage stability and shelf life is a valuable reference for professionals involved in quality assurance and product development and researchers focussing on food and beverage stability. - A comprehensive guide to factors influencing stability, methods of stability and shelf life assessment and the stability and shelf life of major products - Describes important food and beverage quality deterioration processes exploring microbiological spoilage and physical instability - Investigate the effects of ingredients, processing and packaging on stability and documents methods for stability and shelf life assessment

Food Shelf Life Stability provides a unique approach to understanding this critical subject by examining physical, chemical, and biochemical factors affecting food quality. The first section emphasizes the effects that water activity, glass transition, and plasticization have on temperature, water content, and time-dependant phenomena affecting

Oxidative Stability and Shelf Life of Foods Containing Oils and Fats focuses on food stability and shelf life, both important factors in the improvement and development of food products. This book, relevant for professionals in the food and pet food industries, presents an evaluation of methods for studies on the oxidative stability and shelf life of bulk oils/fats, fried oils and foods, food emulsions, dried foods, meat and meat products, and seafood in food and pet food. - Focuses on the application of various evaluation methods to studies of oxidative stability and shelf life in oils and fats and oils and fats-containing foods in the food and pet food industries - Discusses oxidative stability and shelf life of low-moisture (dry) food, including dry pet food - Discusses lipid co-oxidation with protein because a number of food products contain both lipids and proteins - Directed mainly toward readers working in the food and pet food industries

Food Storage Stability addresses one of the foremost problems faced by food processors - how to stabilize food once it is harvested. Using a holistic approach, the book discusses the changes responsible for food quality deterioration and considers strategies for minimizing or eliminating these degradative changes. Topics include: consumer perceptions and preferences, cellular changes, conversion of major constituents to more stable products, the effect of color and texture, packaging issues, and practical strategies for storing foods frozen, chilled, or at ambient temperature. Food Storage Stability is the only treatment of this subject that covers the diverse factors that influence quality retention in foods and integrates basic concepts in storage stability with practical applications. Food scientists and technologists concerned with changes in food quality are interested in ensuring that safe and appealing food products reach consumers - this is the book that will assist them with that important goal.

Food Quality and Shelf Life covers all aspects and challenges of food preservation, packaging and shelf-life. It provides information on the most important pillars in the field, starting with active and smart packaging materials, novel technologies, and control tools in all stages between production and consumer. The book gives emphasis to methodological approaches for sensory shelf-life estimation and the impact of packaging on sensorial properties. Researchers and professionals alike will find this reference useful, especially those who are interested in the performance evaluation of future packaging for fresh produce in the cold chain and temperature management in the supply chain.

The subject of shelf life of foods is not a new one. Increasing consumer interest in food safety, quality and date marking, competitjve pressures from retailers and extensive legislative changes, however, have combined to give the subject a new significance. The proper and correct determina tion of shelf life is of course fundamental to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) for the food and drink industry. Manufacturers who aim to produce safe, wholesome and attractive food products 'right the first time' and 'right every time' will already know the importance of proper shelf life evaluation. Incorrect shelf lives can potentially bring about dire legal, safety or financial consequences. This is not to belittle the difficulty of failing to meet consumer expectations consistently as a result of shelf lives that have been arrived at unreliably. A proper evaluation of shelf life must be grounded on sound scientific principles, supported by up-to-date techniques in food science and tech nology. This book, therefore, begins with five chapters reviewing the prin ciples of shelf life evaluation. These are followed by ten chapters on a number of selected food products. All the authors either have first hand experience on the practice of shelf life evaluation or are involved in research of the subject. Because of the diversity and complexity of food products now available, no attempt has been made to cover every product group, let alone every product conceivable.