Changes in Selected Food Quality Components after Exceeding the Date of Minimum Durability—Contribution to Food Waste Reduction
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study entitled “Searching for ways to reduce food wastes for sustainable development” is about an important and pertinent topic. The authors prepared a well-structured and well-written manuscript, but it fails in the number of samples studied and, more important, to present only one batch of each.
I would also like to know why the authors used such old international standards. For example, the authors used ISO 4833:2003 (mentioned in the manuscript as 2004) for the enumeration of total microorganisms, which was replaced by ISO 4833:2013. Authors should also reformulate the results section as the same results are presented in both text and tables. Also some specific points need to be changed or clarified:
Line 172-174: L*a*b* instead of L/a/b/
Line 195: Please eliminate the parenthesis after cfu/g. Since it is the first time that cfu appears in the text, it must be written in full.
Lines 193-212: Please reformulate the sentences, since results are already presented in table 2.
Line 209: “yeasts and moulds” instead of “yeast and mould”.
Lines 209-210: What do the authors mean by “…were found which did not persist after 1 month from the date of minimal persistence”? Please clarify.
Line 220: Please add a reference to support this statement.
Line 233: In this section, the presentation of results is very difficult to follow. I think that authors should shorten the text and make it clearer and more appealing to readers.
Line 422: Please change “the authors hardly can discuss” by “the authors can hardly discuss”.
Line 427: Please add a reference at the end of the sentence “…European countries”.
Line 429: Please add a reference at the end of the sentence “…ready-to-eat products”.
Line 443: Please reformulate the sentence “Drying…number of microorganisms”.
Line 446-454: Are there no studies with this type of food products or even similar? Authors should discuss and not just present the results.
Line 467: Please add a reference to support this statement.
Line 507: “in samples” instead of “in a samples”.
References: Correct the dates of the ISO references from numbers 13 to 17.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Review – Sustainability – Searching for ways to reduce food wastes for sustainable development
In this manuscript, the authors test several food items on their quality indicators after the use by date. With experimental test after 1, 3 and 6 months they analyze the bacterial count, the color change, the water activity and pH values of the products. Moreover, they do sensory/odor tests. Results show that most products analyzed are still perfectly fine after 3 months.
Although this is an interesting experiment, I do have several (major) comments on the paper which I will state chronological.
- The title does not cover the content of the paper at all. When I read this title, I expect something completely different. I would highly recommend revising the title such that it does reflects the content of the study.
- The introduction of the paper is written rather unclear. Both from a grammatical point of view as from the content itself. It does feel as a summary of important terms however it lacks a clear story structure. (on the contrary, the methodology and result section are clear to the point.)
- Some of the results of the experiments are shown in line/scatter plots. As these ‘points’ are in my opinion not necessarily related to each other (sometimes it’s good to have a high score, sometimes a low score is good) I don’t see the point of connecting the dots with a line. This should either become clear intuitively, or a different graph layout should be chosen in my opinion.
- In the discussion section the authors mention the lack of similar studies. It might be true that there is only 1 study that had exactly the same set-up as theirs, however I’m highly doubting if there aren’t any other available studies to compare with. Food safety and shelf life is a very important topic in the food industry, there are numerous studies on preservation techniques. These studies also test shelf life of products, and therefore give an option to compare the results of this manuscript. I would suggest the authors to look a bit broader in terms of “similar” research than they did so far. This would contribute to a much stronger study, one that is embedded into the existing literature.
- In the discussion, from line 524, a motivation is given for this research. I think moving this motivation to the introduction of the manuscript would improve the paper. Before going into the methodology and results of a study, it is very interesting to know why this study would be interesting at all. Currently this does not become clear in the intro, and a bit in the discussion section. I therefore would advise the introduction and the discussion as such that the manuscript becomes stronger.
- In the last paragraph of the discussion (line 559-563) the authors summarize the results and mention that the tested products are still of high quality after 3 months after the best before date. However, they do also state some guidelines. One of them is to thoroughly heat/boil the products. I would like to see some more discussion on this point. In my opinion it is a very important one, and from a consumer perspective this might not always be followed. What would be the consequences? Are the products still safe to eat when not heated thoroughly? Does it matter that much? And how can we ensure consumers do follow the cooking instructions?
Minor comments:
- Line 35, the reference is behind the dot.
- Table one is very unclear due to the page break in the table. Please make sure tables are presented on a single page, or if not possible, please re-use the headings on the next page again.
- Add horizontal lines in the tables to improve the readability (e.g in table 2)
- Line 303, the caption of the table is on the next page
- Please check the manuscript again on typo and grammar errors.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors made all the proposed changes so I recommend the acceptance of the manuscript after the following minor revisions:
When I suggested the reformulation of the sentences, it was in the sense of not describing the results that are shown in Table 2. Some changes were made, but since the authors chose to keep some of the sentences, I think that the values of log cfu/g in parentheses should appear on lines 253 and 256.
Lines 256 and 533: “moulds” instead of “mould”.
Line 258: Replace “researched” by “tested”.
Line 275: “odour” instead of “dour”.
Line 294: Something is missing in the sentence "For example significantly increased intensity of" boiled millet "," grain "and" storage "flavor of the millet samples"...
Author Response
Manuscript ID: sustainability-759057; Response to Reviewer 1 Comments; Round 2
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your next comments and suggestion. Below you will find answers including list of changes. We hope that our manuscript is now acceptable for publication in Sustainability.
Kind regards,
Monika Trząskowska and co-authors
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When I suggested the reformulation of the sentences, it was in the sense of not describing the results that are shown in Table 2. Some changes were made, but since the authors chose to keep some of the sentences, I think that the values of log cfu/g in parentheses should appear on lines 253 and 256.
Answer: Thank you for comment. Your remark was included in the manuscript. See line 218 and 221.
Lines 256 and 533: “moulds” instead of “mould”.
Answer: Thank you for comment. Your remark was included in the manuscript. See lines 221 and 451.
Line 258: Replace “researched” by “tested”.
Answer: Thank you for comment. Your remark was included in the manuscript. See line 222.
Line 275: “odour” instead of “dour”.
Answer: Thank you for comment. Your remark was included in the manuscript. See line 240.
Line 294: Something is missing in the sentence "For example significantly increased intensity of" boiled millet "," grain "and" storage "flavor of the millet samples"...
Answer: Thank you for comment. The sentence in the text has been reworded. See line 250.
Reviewer 2 Report
I think the authors did a decent job in revising the article. The introduction to the research is much stronger now.
However, I still think that it would be worth to discuss the last point I made in the previous round. Even if there is the intention to go into detail on this in a later paper. The point could still be mentioned and shortly discussed.
Although the writing improved, I would still recommend to carefully read the text again to improve the readability.
Otherwise I don't have further recommendations/ comments.
Author Response
Manuscript ID: sustainability-759057; Response to Reviewer 2 Comments; Round 2
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your next comments and suggestion. Below you will find answers including a list of changes. We hope that our manuscript is now acceptable for publication in Sustainability.
Kind regards,
Monika Trząskowska and co-authors
---
I think the authors did a decent job in revising the article. The introduction to the research is much stronger now.
However, I still think that it would be worth to discuss the last point I made in the previous round. Even if there is the intention to go into detail on this in a later paper. The point could still be mentioned and shortly discussed.
Although the writing improved, I would still recommend to carefully read the text again to improve the readability.
Otherwise I don't have further recommendations/ comments.
Answer: Thank you for comment. As you suggested, we added a few sentences to address the problem of guidelines in our manuscript. See lines 532-539. What is more, we have read the text carefully and introduced some changes to improve the readability.