Pork Liver Freshness Evaluated through Spoilage Microbiota and a Consumer Test in Shelf Life Extension Experiment

Abstract EN

Pork liver is an affordable product, very much appreciated by some consumers.

Packaged pork liver has a short shelf life that can represent an additional cost to the producers.

This work aimed to assess the relationship between consumer acceptability, evaluated through both a test made live with photography and samples to be smelled and an internet survey platform based only on photography, and the counts of the main spoilage microorganisms, on pork liver samples stored from the actual end of shelf life (ESL) and two extra days of storage times, ESL + 2 and ESL + 4.

The results indicate limited usefulness of microbial counts, once they were generally very similar between accepted and nonaccepted samples, with total viable count below 7 Log CFU/g.

Both methodological approaches revealed that there is no margin to extend the shelf life from the three days previously established by the manufacturer.

It was observed that pork liver packaged with modified atmosphere had similar evaluations of freshness using internet-based or live test with consumers, with a drop in purchase intention from 87.5% at ESL to 13.2% at ESL + 2, when the assessment was made through the internet-based test.

When the test was made live, the purchase intention had the same trend, but the drop was smaller, from 61.5 at ESL to 21.2% at ESL + 2.

The purchasing intention was lower when the consumers had the opportunity to smell the samples but considering the decision of defining the end of shelf life based on 50% of consumers accepting, it was similar in almost all the cases.