FOOD. Science. Technology. Quality

Food. SCIENCE. Technology. Quality

Food. Science. TECHNOLOGY. Quality

Food. Science. Technology. QUALITY

Authors

IZABELA STEINKA

Title

Assessing the usefulness of polynomial equations for predicting the quality of hermetically packed lactic acid cheeses

Abstract

The microbiological quality of hermetically packed lactic acid cheeses, found in the Polish market, often varies. Whilst assessing a correlation between the population size of micro-organisms occurring in lactic acid cheeses and their storage period under the refrigerating conditions, it was found that there was no linear correlation between those two factors. When trying to apply models of the response surface, it was not possible to include all the correlations resulting from the hermetic storage of lactic acid cheeses, type of packaging, kind of packing system, and the initial microbiological contamination of products. The polynomial equations of the first order with many unknowns appeared the most useful to describe the changeability of populations in lactic acid cheeses. The possibility to apply a polynomial equation, describing a hyper-plane in m-dimensional space, to construct a predictive computer model was assessed. The developed predictive model of the third order allowed for assessing the changes in the quality of lactic acid cheeses during the storage period. There was verified the way the polynomial investigated functioned, and it was found that the timedynamic JMPHT model of assessing the microbiological quality of hermetically packed lactic acid cheeses could be practically applied to predict the stability of cheese products.

Keywords

polynomial, model, micro-flora, lactic acid cheeses, computer software, predicting

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