The dynamics of the HS/SPME–GC/MS as a tool to assess the spoilage of minced beef stored under different packaging and temperature conditions

• The evolution of volatile compounds during meat storage was assessed.
• The GC/MS data were correlated with the microbiological and sensory data using chemometrics.
• PCA depicted many volatile compounds as possible spoilage indicators.
• DFA showed a satisfactory classification of the samples according to their sensory scores.
• PLS-R models exhibited good performance on estimating the counts of the indigenous microbiota.

The aim of the current study was to assess meat spoilage through the evolution of volatile compounds using chemometrics. Microbiological and sensory assessment, pH measurement and headspace solid phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (headspace SPME–GC/MS) analysis were carried out in minced beef stored aerobically and under modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) at 0, 5, 10, and 15 °C. It was shown that the HS/SPME–GC/MS analysis provided useful information about a great number of volatile metabolic compounds detected during meat storage. Many of the identified and semi-quantified compounds were correlated with the sensory scores through the use of chemometrics, depicting possible spoilage indicators such as 2-pentanone, 2-nonanone, 2-methyl-1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl propanoate, ethyl lactate, ethyl acetate, ethanol, 2-heptanone, 3-octanone, diacetyl, and acetoin. Finally, the applied GC/MS global models were able to estimate the microbial counts of the different microorganisms and the sensory scores of a meat sample regardless of storage conditions (i.e. packaging and temperature).