Study of the shelf life of ripe olives using an accelerated test approach

An Accelerated Shelf Life Test (ASLT) was carried out to estimate the shelf life of ripe olives (Californian style) as a function of firmness, colour and pH. Changes followed an apparent first-order kinetic. Their rates and activation energies were estimated from the response surface obtained from one-step non-linear fitting of the kinetic model to the experimental data as a function of temperature and time. There was a similar trend in the evolution of firmness, colour and pH rates with changes in temperature. Graphic representations of expected shelf lives as a function of temperature and relative degradation for firmness, colour and pH are provided. Based on them, producers can deduce the appropriate shelf life for each specific storage condition and quality level. The current shelf life on the label (1080 days) was higher, when assessed for product firmness, than that found for a relative quality change of 0.20 at 30 °C in initially soft ripe olives. Exposure to higher temperatures markedly reduces shelf life.