THE INFLUENCE OF THE THERMAL HISTORY ON THE SHELF-LIFE OF CARBONATED BEVERAGES BOTTLED IN PLASTIC CONTAINERS

For sake of simplicity in predicting the shelf life of biologically st able products, it is often the case that their thermal history is not taken into account. In many cases, however this approximation is not a ppropriate and the shelf life predicted can be quite different from th e actual one. This paper presents three different examples of shelf li fe prediction of soft drinks aimed at showing the error that one can m ake by underestimating the importance of the bottle thermal history. I n the first example, the shelf life of the beverage was estimated assu ming that the storage temperature was constant and equal to room tempe rature for the entire storage period In the second case it was assumed that the temperature of the bottle varies during the storage period b ut for sake of simplicity, in performing the calculation the temperatu re was kept constant and equal to the average temperature of storage. In the last case the situation in which the temperature of the bottle of carbonated beverage varied during the storage period and during the day was examined. It was shown that under conditions comparable to th at occurring during distribution the shelf life estimated differs sign ificantly from that predicted by neglecting the temperature rise due t o outdoor storage and sunlight exposure. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Lim ited. All rights reserved.