Probabilistic shelf life assessment of white button mushrooms through sensorial properties analysis

Sensory test was carried out on different batches of white button mushrooms stored at various temperatures (5, 10, 15 °C and 3.5 °C control) for 5-7days to find the effect of temperature and storage time on the sensory characteristics. Acceptance or rejection of the mushrooms was used to evaluate the shelf life of the product. Sensory data was modelled using mixed-effects logistic regression model. Quality parameters were significantly (p < 0.001) affected by the temperature of storage. It was found out that variances for all sensory qualities except cap hardness were more influenced by the panel variation compared to variation between mushrooms in random effect calculation. It was concluded that overall acceptability was more influenced by the cap hardness and maturity of the mushrooms than overall visual quality. A methodology to define conservative estimations of shelf life based on probabilistic assumptions, without resorting to "rule-of-thumb" conservative assessments is presented in this article.