Identification of influence factors on the quality and shelf life of fresh meat throughout the supply chain

Abstract

Due to the industrialization and globalization of food production, food supply chains became increasingly complex, which led to a multitude of steps that products must pass during production, processing and distribution. At the same time, the quality standards and requirements for shelf life were raised in order to allow for the most efficient delivery and exploitation of the sales period of fresh products, especially for meat. During the supply, meat is exposed to several environments from farm to fork which might affect the quality and shelf life of the good. This work aims at the identification of the most important influence factors based on a literature review. First, the quality connotation of meat is defined and different aspects of meat quality are analyzed. Second, freshness and the spoilage process of fresh meat are characterized. Then, four main categories of factors influencing quality and shelf life of meatare identified, namely animal-specific, product-specific, process-specific and environmental factors. The impact of these factors is discussed by means of examples as well as graphs based on the literature review. The results are summed up in the conclusion leading to an outlook which points to future research prospects and the actual lack of investigations.