ABSTRACT
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
II. Monitoring the Control Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
A. Requirements and Control of the Stages of the Cold Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
1. Cold Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
2. Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
3. Retail Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
4. Home Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
5. Transfer Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
B. Temperature Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
C. Equipment for Temperature Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
1. Sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
2. Read Out and Recording Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
3. Temperature Monitoring with Time-Temperature Integrators . . . . . . . . . 286
III. Temperature Effect on Shelf-Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
A. Quality Modeling of Frozen Foods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
B. Microbiology of Frozen Foods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
C. Physicochemical Indices of Quality of Frozen Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
D. Shelf-Life Prediction under Fluctuating Temperature Conditions . . . . . . . . . . 291
E. Application of TTI as Monitoring and Prediction Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
IV. Optimized Management with TTI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
V. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Modern lifestyle and the evolution of consumer requirements over the past decade have led to
significant increase in demand for frozen foods, which offers the advantages of easy and quick prep-
aration of a “fresh-like” meal. In Europe and the United States, the market of frozen foods has been
expanded so as to include a variety of products, aimed at all of the segments’ consumers. Frozen
food purchase represents a significant percentage of the total food expenses. For example, in
France frozen food consumption reaches 45% of the total food purchase [1].
