RESEARCHES ON THE STABILITY AND SHELF-LIFE OF CANNED TOMATOES

Abstract

There is a series of internal and external factors in the food chain that influence the shelf- life of the packaging system- food stuff: the selection and quality of the raw materials, the fabrication network, the processing and conservation techniques, the packaging, storage and distribution for the consumers.  The  analyze  of  the  long term  stability  of the  lacquer  layer  in the  case of  the  tin canned tomatoes with different lacquers (3 systems of epoxy phenolic lacquer) was accomplished to compare the  protection  abilities  of  the  lacquers  and  the  extension  of  the  shelf-life. The  analyze  was  done initially and along the storage and focused upon: the characteristics of the inner lacquer layer; the sensorial and physico-chemical characteristics of the product as well as the metal content (AAS). The results obtained were the following: the porosity of the lacquer layer on the empty cans as well as on the  tested  cans  during  the  storage  of  1  and  respectively  2  years  did  not  suffer  any  modifications. During the two analyzed periods of storage the sensorial properties and the physico-chemical ones of the product „Tomatoes paste”, including the heavy metals, differ according to the protection lacquer type of the cans: for the cans with  white lacquer there are no modifications while for the cans with yellow  lacquer,  for  both  situations  after  2  years  of  storage  there  are  significant  sensorial modifications due to the aggressiveness of the product content.