Storage Stability and Shelf Life Characteristics of Korean Savory Sauce Products

This study evaluated the storage stability of a variety of sauce products in the Korean market, determined primary quality indices for three typical products, and proposed functional relationships that are useful for determining shelf life at different temperatures. Most of the products examined were found to combine hurdles of low pH, low water activity, and the use of heat processing as methods for producing the required storage stability while maintaining the sensory quality of the products. For a meat extract solution produced for cold noodles (pH=4.3; $a_w=0.98$), the primary quality change determining shelf life was lipid oxidation, determined here by the TBA value. The primary quality index of a soybean paste seasoning mix (pH=4.0; $a_w=0.78$), which had a microbial load of 2.8 log (CFU/g), was a decrease in its pH. The primary quality index for a sandwich spread (pH=4.0; $a_w=0.88$) was changes in its surface color. The temperature dependence of changes in the primary quality indices can be described by the Arrhenius equation, which can estimate the shelf life at any arbitrary limit as a function of temperature. The activation energies for changes in the primary quality indices of the meat extract solution, the soybean paste seasoning, and the sandwich spread were 20.3, 27.2, and 43.5 kJ/mol, respectively.