Development and assessment of an intelligent Shelf Life Decision System for quality optimization of the food chill chain

The principles of application of a Shelf Life Decision System (SLDS) for th e optimization of the distribution of chilled fresh and minimally processed food products are developed. The SLDS integrates predictive kinetic models of food spoilage, data on initial quality from rapid techniques, and the c apacity to continuously monitor temperature history of the food product wit h Time Temperature Integrators (TTIs) into an effective chill chain managem ent tool that leads to an improved narrow distribution of quality at consum ption time, effectively reducing the probability of products consumed past shelf life end. The applicability and effectiveness of the SLDS is demonstr ated and evaluated based on actual food spoilage and TTI kinetics and chill chain data employing the Monte Carlo simulation method.