Development of On-Pack Visual Indicator for Monitoring Freshness of Raw Beef Products

The aim of this thesis is to develop an innovative, quick, and cost-effective detection system for the real time monitoring of freshness of packaged meat during storage. In order to achieve this, we first identified the volatile compounds released from porterhouse beef steaks in three different commercial packaging systems (MAP, CP, VP) before and after the best before date, and then extended the analysis procedure to non-invasive sampling of volatiles from the headspace of raw beef inside MAP. Finally, we tested a combination of three indicators in-situ on simulated commercial packaging and co-related the indicator response to surface microbial growth.