Effects of different storage temperatures on the physicochemical properties and bacterial community structure of fresh lamb meat

Ce Liang¹, Dequan Zhang², Xiaochun Zheng², Xiangyuan Wen², Tongjing Yan², Zhisheng Zhang¹^,^*, Chengli Hou²^,^*

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹College of Food Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, Hebei 071000, China.

²Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Key Laboratory of Agro-products Quality and Safety Control in Storage and Transport Process, Beijing 100193, China.

^*Corresponding Author: Zhisheng Zhang, College of Food Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, Hebei, 071000, China. Phone: +86-10-62819392. E-mail: zhangzhisheng@hebau.edu.cn.

^*Corresponding Author: Chengli Hou, Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Key Laboratory of Agro-products Quality and Safety Control in Storage and Transport Process, Beijing 100193, China. Phone: +86-10-62819392. E-mail: houchengli@163.com.

© Copyright 2021 Korean Society for Food Science of Animal Resources. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Mar 05, 2021 ; Revised: Mar 20, 2021 ; Accepted: Mar 22, 2021

Published Online: Mar 25, 2021

Abstract

This study was aimed to compare the physicochemical properties and bacterial community structure of tray‐packaged fresh lamb meat under different storage temperatures, such as 4°C (chilling), –1.5°C (supercooling), –4°C (superchilling) and –9°C (sub-freezing). The total viable counts (TVC), total volatile base nitrogen (TVB-N), bacterial diversity and metabolic pathways were investigated. The results indicated that the shelf life of superchilling and sub-freezing storage was over 70 d, which was significantly longer than that of chilling and supercooling storage. TVC and TVB-N values showed an increasing trend and were correlated well (R²＞0.92). And the TVB-N values of lamb meat were exceeded the tolerable limit (15 mg/100 g) only found under chilling and supercooling storage during storage period. At the genus level, Pseudomonas was the core spoilage bacteria then followed Brochothrix for chilling and supercooling storage. Pseudomonas, Ralstonia, Psychrobacter and Acinetobacter were the dominant spoilage bacteria for superchilling and sub-freezing storage. Furthermore, the bacterial community diversity of lamb meat stored at chilling and supercooling storage decreased with the storage time prolonged, which was opposite to the outcome of meat stored under superchilling and sub-freezing storage. For chilling and supercooling storage, the abundance of main metabolisms (carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism, etc) of bacteria increased with the storage time prolonged, which was opposite to superchilling storage. This may be related to the bacteria community diversity and the formation of dominant spoilage bacteria. In conclusion, this work provides data for the preservation of fresh lamb meat which will benefit the meat industry.

Keywords: fresh lamb meat; supercooling; superchilling; sub-freezing; quality