Abstract: Changes in physicochemical indicators and bacterial flora of farmed Scophthalmus maximus stored at low (0–10 ℃), ambient and fluctuating temperatures were determined. Meanwhile, the predominant spoilage organisms and shelf life under the three storage conditions were also studied, and shelf-life predictive models were fitted by means of Exponential, School-field and Square-root equations, respectively and their goodness of fit was evaluated. The results showed that the shelf life of farmed Scophthalmus maximus was 6.1–32.6 days at low temperature, and the predominant spoilage bacteria were Shewanella putrefaciens (40.3%) and Pseudomonas spp. (27.4%); the shelf life was 1.3 days at room temperature, and the predominant spoilage bacteria were Aeromonas spp. (47.1%) and Shewanella putrefaciens (29.4%). The temperature characteristic coefficient a, theoretical minimum temperature Tmin and activation energy Ea from the Exponential, Schoolfield and Square-root models were 0.12, –6.6 ℃ and 81.4 kJ/mol, respectively. The goodness of fit of the three models was compared by accuracy factor (Af), bias factor (Bf), root mean square error (RMSE) and mean residual error (MRE), and the predictive ability of the Square-root model was better than that of other models. The model predictions were experimentally validated under isothermal and non-isothermal conditions, and the relative error of the Square-root model was lower than that of the other models, suggesting that it could be used as a reliable to accurately predict the shelf life of farmed Scophthalmus maximus under isothermal and non-isothermal conditions.

Key words: farmed Scophthalmus maximus, bacterial flora, predominant spoilage bacteria, shelf life prediction