Abstract:

The aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of non-packaging and vacuum packaging on some quality
characteristics and the shelf life of Harbin red sausage. The unpackaged and vacuum-packaged Harbin red sausages were
stored at (4 ± 0.5) ℃. The vacuum-packaged samples were evaluated for physicochemical parameters, microbial analysis
and sensory properties at intervals of 8, 8, 6, 5, and 5 days, while the unpackaged samples were analyzed at intervals of 5, 4, 3,
and 3 days. Shelf life evaluation was based on pH value, water activity (aw), color (CIE L*, a*, b*) values, thiobarbituric acid
reactive substance formation (TBARS) value, total volatile basic nitrogen (T-VBN), microbial counts and sensory attributes.
Results showed that both storage time and packaging conditions affected significantly (P < 0.05) all the parameters except
for aw. The pH value and sensory scores significantly decreased (P < 0.05) during storage whereas TBARS values, T-VBN
and total viable count (TVC) increased significantly (P < 0.05). The color of unpackaged samples was significantly different
during storage (P < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the color of vacuum-packaged samples during
storage (P > 0.05). The correlation analysis showed that there were strong correlations among all indexes, and that the
sensory scores had the closest correlation with all other indexes. These results indicate that vacuum packaging can prolong
the shelf-life of Harbin red sausage in comparison to unpackaged samples. Furthermore, we can obtain information about the
influence of packaging on microbial and physicochemical indexes by measuring the sensory quality.

Key words: Harbin red sausage, quality characteristics, shelf life, vacuum packaging, unpackaged