This study was carried out to establish shelf life for pork cutlet of ground meat and pork lard by using various quality indicators and to understand how quality changes in these products are accelerated by temperature. The samples were selected and purchased from markets in Korea, and the chosen quality indicators were total aerobic counts and coliform group in microbiological analyses, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances assay, volatile basic nitrogen, pH, acid value, and peroxide value in physical chemical analyses, and sensory evaluation. The pork cutlet samples were stored at -18℃, -6℃, and -1℃, whereas pork lard samples were stored at 10℃, 25℃, 35℃, and 45℃. These temperature conditions were set to real distribution conditions. The samples were then analyzed using various models including of reaction orders, arrhenius equation, and Q10 value. The quality limits for each sample were calculated, and shelf life was estimated. The results of this experiment highlighted the importance of temperature control during the distribution process of these products and revealed that temperature is a useful parameter for the establishment of a basic database for shelf life.
Keywords: pork cutlet; pork lard; shelf life.