Processing, Products, and Food Safety Ii 142 Effect of In-package Ozonation on Quality of Raw Broiler Breast Meat during Storage

In-package ozonation is an antimicrobial packaging system that uses atmospheric cold plasma technology to generate ozone and other gases inside a sealed package to inhibit microbial growth on packaged food. Previous unpublished research has shown that in-package ozonation effectively kills and inhibits microbes on raw chicken breast meat. However, ozone has a high oxidation potential and may influence meat color and lipid stability (oxidation). There is a lack of information about the effect of in-package ozonation on meat quality during refrigerated storage. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of in-package ozonation on quality attributes of raw broiler breast meat. Boneless skinless broiler fillets were placed in Cryovac rigid trays sealed in air with a barrier film and exposed to ozonation treatment (70 kV for 120 s). Similarly packaged samples served as non-treated controls. Samples were stored at 4°C for 8 d. Headspace gas composition, meat surface pH, color, lipid oxidation, and drip loss were evaluated on d 1, 5, and 8. There were no treatment differences in the O2 and CO2 contents of the packages, meat color, or lipid oxidation by d 1 and d 5 of storage. By d 8 of storage, however, differences were observed for headspace composition, muscle surface pH, and color lightness. With storage from d 1 to 8, headspace O2 content decreased more in controls (21% to 3%) than treated packages (21% to 12%); CO2 content increased more in controls (0% to 18%) than treated packages (0% to 11%). With storage, color lightness (L* value) of the meat changed by more than 6 units and surface pH increased by 0.8 units in the control samples; however, they remained unchanged in treated meat. There were no differences between the control and ozonation treatments for lipid oxidation or drip loss. These results demonstrate that under our experimental conditions in-package ozonation does not have any negative effects on the quality of raw chicken breast meat during refrigerated storage.