Abstract:

The formation of biogenic amines in chilled pork may be correlated with different quality indexes. In this study,
chilled pork was vacuum-packaged at 5 ℃ to analyze the changes of biogenic amines and spoilage quality indices during
storage. The results showed that putrescine, cadaverine and tyramine had remarkable correlation with pH, TVB-N, electrical
conductivity and microbiological counts at the level of 0.01. The correlation coefficients between putrescine, cadaverine or
tyramine and total bacterial counts were 0.888, 0.938 and 0.909, respectively. However, histamine, spermidine and spermine
had no correlation with each spoilage quality index. A significant correlation (P ＜ 0.01) was also observed for putrescine,
cadaverine and tyramine, and there was no clear correlation between putrescine, cadaverine or tyramine and each of the other
three biogenic amines. Therefore, putrescine, cadaverine and tyramine can be used as spoilage indexes to evaluate vacuumpacked
chilled pork except for bacteria counts, pH, TVB-N and electrical conductivity, and the contents of the three biogenic
amines may reflect spoilage degree.

Key words: chilled pork, biogenic amine, spoilage, correlation