Multi‐factor accelerated aging of neutral pudding packed in retort pouches determined by instrumental and fluorescence techniques

BACKGROUND Accelerated shelf life tests have been conducted on very few shelf‐stable products. The aim of this study was to reproduce quality changes occurring in neutral pudding packed in retort pouches over a one‐year storage period at room temperature in approximately 100 days. The influence of headspace volume, packaging permeability, combination of packaging permeability and light, iron and copper on the quality changes of pudding throughout storage was investigated at the molecular and macroscopic scales. Analyses were performed from day 15 to 368 for control samples and from day 15 to 99 for pudding samples where one or more accelerating factors were applied. RESULTS Retort pouches enriched with iron or copper showed similar trends to control pouches regarding changes in rheological, pH and color parameters during storage. These catalysts could be used as accelerating factors for the last‐mentioned parameters. Riboflavin and tryptophan fluorescence spectra recorded on samples supplemented with iron aged 99 days were the most similar to those of control pudding samples aged 368 days. Neither the headspace volume nor the packaging permeability was found to affect the aging of neutral pudding samples. CONCLUSION Samples supplemented with iron were the most appropriate to accelerate the aging of neutral pudding.