High‐Oxygen and Carbon Monoxide Packaging Enriched With CO 2 for the Shelf‐Life Prolongation of Chilled Pork: Dynamic Analysis of Microbiota and Physicochemical Profiles
Xiaoyin Yang, Haisheng Liu, Benjamin W. B. Holman, Wenbin Wang, Yuwei Zhao, Junjie Gong, Yimin Zhang, Rongrong Liang, Yanwei MaoABSTRACT
This study investigated the influences of various CO
2
concentrations on the microbiological and physicochemical quality of high‐oxygen and carbon monoxide packaged pork steaks during chilled storage. Based on the commercial HiOx‐MAP 1 (70% O
2
/30% CO
2
) and CO‐MAP 1 (0.4% CO/30% CO
2
/69.6% N
2
), the novel HiOx‐MAP 2 (40% O
2
/60% CO
2
) and CO‐MAP 2 (0.4% CO/60% CO
2
/39.6% N
2
) were formulated by elevating CO
2
levels from 30% to 60%. CO‐MAP demonstrated more advantages over HiOx‐MAP in maintaining meat colour and lipid and protein oxidative stability. HiOx‐MAP and CO‐MAP enriched with the same CO
2
levels exhibited similar total viable counts in pork steaks, regardless of O
2
levels. Increasing CO
2
levels in both HiOx‐MAP and CO‐MAP significantly reduced bacterial counts and total volatile basic nitrogen accumulation, but negatively affected the colour of HiOx‐MAP pork. HiOx‐MAP 2 even exhibited a stronger antibacterial potential than the anaerobic CO‐MAP 1, owing to the effective control of total viable counts by the higher level of CO
2
, whereby CO
2
‐mediated microbiota development relied on the presence or absence of O
2
. In contrast to the most dominant