The effects of transportation hazards on shelf life of packaged potato chips

• Transportation effects the performance of packaging materials.
• Transport hazards can affect the shelf life of packaged products.
• Deteriorative reactions can be increased as a result of transport hazards.
• Food quality and attributes can change as a result of transport hazards

Kettle cooked potato chips packaged inside metallized oriented polypropylene bags were used to evaluate the effects of simulated transportation on shelf life. While shelf life testing provides accurate results for shelf dating, the research project assessed whether or not subjecting packaged products to known transportation hazards can increase or accelerate the deteriorative factors that affect the shelf life of a produce. By stressing the packages through laboratory simulated transportation hazards, it created failures to the packages that would not have normally shown up during a traditional test protocol, such as accelerated shelf life testing (ASLT). Results showed packages evaluated through a simulated transport test reported an average oxygen transmission rate three times greater than samples having not been transport tested. Outcomes from this study showed the rate at which some properties of the food and package can increase as a result of the simulated transportation, versus standard ASLT with only increased temperature and humidity. Differences of significance were observed between the simulated transportation and the standard ASLT samples when comparing headspace composition, moisture content, and TBA testing (P < 0.05).