Comparison of the quality and storage stability of salmon packaged in various retort pouches

The effect of thin metal oxide coated barrier materials on the quality of shelf stable salmon was investigated. Four different retort pouch structures were used: Cast polypropylene (CPP); polyethylene terephthalate (PET)/silicon oxide-coated nylon/CPP (SIOX); Aluminum oxide-coated PET/nylon/CPP (ALOX); PET/aluminum foil/CPP (FOIL). To determine the amount of lipid oxidation in the salmon, thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) was measured. Salmon packaged in SIOX pouches had higher TBARS value, 43.53 mili-extinction/g, than salmon packaged in FOIL pouches, 37.06 mili-extinction/g, after 8 weeks of storage. A multiple comparisons test was used to evaluate the sensory characteristics of the salmon. Salmon packaged in SIOX pouches had less acceptability, 4.11, than salmon packaged in FOIL pouches, 5.44, after week 8. Conversely, salmon packaged in ALOX pouches had similar sensory and TBARS value with salmon packaged in FOIL pouches. The barrier properties of each pouch material were also investigated. Oxygen permeability (OP, g μm/m2 day kPa) of SIOX increased from 0.88 to 10.55 after retort processing. SIOX had an OP of 10.94 at week 8 while ALOX and FOIL had 0.51 and 0.47 of OP, respectively. Overall, shelf stable salmon packaged in ALOX had a shelf life comparable to salmon packaged in a traditional FOIL pouch material, while salmon packaged in SIOX had a significantly lower shelf life then either ALOX or FOIL.