A STUDY ON THE SYNERGY OF MODIFIED ATMOSPHERE PACKAGING AND CHITOSAN ON STRACCIATELLA SHELF LIFE

ABSTRACT In this work, the addition of different amounts of chitosan during cheese making, combined with modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) was used to prolong the shelf life of stracciatella cheese. On the packaged cheese stored at 4C microbiological, pH, gas composition and sensorial changes were monitored over an 8‐day period. Results highlighted that the combination of chitosan and MAP prolonged stracciatella cheese shelf life, if compared with the control sample. In fact, the traditional stracciatella showed a short shelf life limited to more or less 3 days, whereas the combination of chitosan and MAP allowed us to obtain a significant shelf life prolongation that accounted to about 7 days. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Consumer demand for food with health‐promoting quality is increasing. The food industry has intensified its efforts to provide safe, high‐quality products by adding natural compounds to fulfill this requirement. The results presented in this work indicate that the combination of chitosan with modified atmosphere packaging can satisfy this particular need and prolong the shelf life of stracciatella cheese. Considering that the proposed strategy is simple and relatively inexpensive, it could be very beneficial and of commercial importance to the dairy industry.