Development of a lipase-based time temperature indicator system for monitoring ground beef quality

Abstract

A time-temperature indicator (TTI) based on Burkholderia cepacia lipase (BCL) activity was developed for monitoring ground beef quality under dynamic storage conditions. The growth of Pseudomonas spp., the major specific spoilage bacterium in meat, was used as a ground beef spoilage index. Arrhenius and logistic models were used to show temperature dependence of the growth of Pseudomonas spp. in ground beef. Under different isothermal conditions (25, 18, 12, and 5°C), the spoilage of ground beef by Pseudomonas spp. and the color change of the BCL-TTI had similar activation energies of 47.5 and 35.8 kJ/mol, respectively. The suitability of the BCL-TTI was validated for ground beef under two dynamic storage conditions using a predictive microbial growth model. The results showed that the endpoint of the BCL-TTI system was close to the end of the shelf life for ground beef with a relative error <10%. Therefore, the BCL-TTI system developed in this study could be useful as an effective tool for monitoring quality changes in ground beef during distribution and storage. © 2012 The Korean Society for Applied Biological Chemistry.