Pedro A. M. K., Ferreira M. M. C., "Multivariate Accelerated Shelf-Life Testing: a Novel Approach for Determining the Shelf-Life of Foods", J. Chemometr.,  20(1-2), 76-83 (Jan-Feb 2006).
 

Abstract.
In order to meet consumers' expectations for high-quality products, food industries must conduct shelf-life studies that many times include the assessment of several analytical and sensory properties. However, whenever a new product is to be launched onto the market, defining which are the most relevant properties to monitor, as well as their cut-off criterion, is the subject of strong debate. Besides, for products with long estimated shelf-lives, accelerated studies have to be conducted and a third parameter has to be estimated: the acceleration factor which defines the correlation between the different storage conditions. In this study we propose a new approach for determining the shelf-life of industrialised food products, the Multivariate Accelerated Shelf-Life Test (MASLT), in which a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is performed and the scores of the time-related components are taken for estimating the multivariate rate constants (k^m), the multivariate acceleration factor (a^m) and the multivariate activation energy (Ea^m). The method was successfully applied to a single-concentrated industrialised tomato product for which the actual shelf-life was estimated to be 28 months. Pseudo-zero-order kinetics resulted in the multivariate parameters a_35,25^m = 2.7 and Ea^m = 150 kJ·mol^-1.

Keywords.
Principal Component Analysis; Chemometrics; Kinetics; Food Degradation; Sensory Analysis.

Keywords Plus.