New Research on Shelf-Life Extension and Quality Improvement of Meat and Meat Products

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, consumers look to meat and meat products and expect them to have several quality attributes. Consumers expect meat to be nutritious, wholesome, fresh, lean, tender, juicy, and flavorsome. They also want to have convenient meat products that are healthy, natural, and tasty, and it is even better if they can last for longer periods in order to minimize food waste. Establishing an adequate shelf life for meat and meat products is a challenge for the industry and researchers. Shelf life can be defined as the period of time during which meat and meat products maintain their suitability for consumption. Loss of quality characteristics might occur due to microbial, chemical, and/or physical modifications that result in detectable sensory attributes recognized as spoilage and/or loss of the safety status of the product. Meat might be contaminated with pathogens; however, as it is not a ready-to-eat product, safety is less of a major concern when defining its shelf life. In fact, concerns regarding meat color and flavor could be important for shelf life establishment. On the contrary, for processed meats products that are cooked or dry-cured and considered ready-to-eat, the behavior of the potential pathogens present must be considered when establishing shelf life. Changes caused by microorganisms or by chemical or physical origins that have sensory implications are the main reasons to establish the end of shelf life. Several methodologies are used to study the adequate length of time for storage, both indirect (such as microbial counts or chemical indicator determination) or direct, using consumers’ perception of freshness and acceptability. Microbial and chemical indicators (total basic volatile nitrogen, biogenic amines, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, and volatile compounds) have been used or proposed to define the end of shelf life. Today, omics methods are in development, and a database should be built to clarify the relationships between microbiota, their metabolites, and changes with respect to meat and meat product quality. Despite their pertinence, indirect methods have some weaknesses, namely the costs of some approaches and their indirect nature, and therefore, they need to be correlated with the perception of freshness by the final user of the meat and meat products—the consumer. Consequently, the use of consumers can be an interesting approach to define shelf life. Consumers are asked if they are willing to consume or willing to purchase a given meat or meat product during a certain period, taking into consideration its freshness. However, consumer tests are also expensive, and it is quite difficult to operationalize the process with meat due to the distance between sampling times and the possibility of delays; other rapid and easy-to-run sensory methodologies should be developed.

Independent of the methods used to define shelf life, there are several factor that might influence the shelf life of meat and meat products, namely the use of preservatives or the withdrawal of preservatives from well-established processing due to its low acceptability by the consumer, modifications of the technology used for processing, and modifications of the chemical characteristics of the meat or the meat product, namely by manipulating the diet of the production animals in order to obtain more interesting products nutritionally, among others. The development of meat products offering cleaner label options has resulted in the search for new ways to improve shelf life while maintaining sensory attributes, particularly flavor and color stability.

Great challenges are posed to researchers working with meat and meat products in order to develop strategies to improve their quality attributes to satisfy consumer needs and equally to extend their shelf life. For this Special Issue of Foods, authors are invited to share their research on methods used in shelf life determination for meat or meat products and on strategies to improve shelf life or production, as well as processing modifications that can be detrimental for the preservation of meat and meat products and impair shelf life.

This Special Issue will focus on studies, including original articles, reviews, mini reviews, and perspectives that touch on the following topics:

(a) Improvement of meat quality at the farm level versus shelf life extension; 

(b) Meat flavor and color stability;

(c) Natural antioxidants and natural antimicrobials used on meat and meat products;

(d) Microbiota involved in meat and meat product spoilage;

(e) Omics methods applied to shelf life evaluation;

(f) Emergent technologies to extend meat and meat product shelf life (new technologies for pathogens and spoilage control);

(g) Clean label meat products versus shelf life;

(f) New packaging materials;

(g) Methods to estimate shelf life.

Prof. Maria João dos Ramos Fraqueza
Prof. Luis Avelino da Silva Coutinho Patarata
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Meat
• Meat products
• Shelf life
• Quality
• Natural antimicrobials
• Natural antioxidants
• Emergent technologies
• Microbiota
• Safety
• Oxidation
• Color
• Spoilage
• Sensory attributes
• Clean label
• Omics methods
• Sensory methods
• Packaging
• Consumer acceptability