Towards Improved Comparability of Off-flavour Measurements of Packaging Materials

• Since one task of packaging in direct contact with food is to preserve flavour, it is important to determine to what extent packaging materials can evoke off-flavours in packed foodstuffs. The generated results may be expressed in terms of intensity, using quantitative measures, and quality, using qualitative descriptors. A maximum off-flavour impact is not seldom specified for paperboard packaging materials. Such specifications would make little sense unless they were comparable to those of other products. For this reason, it is important to develop calibration procedures and to identify critical points for the applied analytical methods. A procedure based on matching the off-flavour intensities of real packaging materials with those of simplified calibration samples has been developed. Defining the concentrations of calibration samples that correspond to actual intensity numbers makes more uniform and comparable quantification possible. The present study examines the difference between real paperboard products and such calibration samples. It also demonstrates that sensory detection ability depends on food simulant characteristics by determining the flavour-detection thresholds of one odorant present in either of two food simulants. The sorption capacities and retention abilities of the food simulants for this odorant were investigated using headspace gas chromatography. The threshold determination identified calibration sample concentrations corresponding to just noticeable off-flavours and verified that a sufficiently large number of trained assessors is needed to conduct such sensory analysis. The sensitivity of different food simulants to off-flavour contamination was also examined.

Nyckelord

Off-flavour

sensory analysis

calibration

detection threshold

food simulants

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