247Chapter 13
Meat Packaging
Maurice G. O ’ Sullivan and Joseph P. Kerry
Introduction
The packaging of muscle - based foods is
necessary to ensure that such products reach
the consumer in a condition that satisfi es his
or her demands on a number of levels,
namely: nutrition, quality, safety, and conve-
nience, as well as the ability to deliver a
product shelf life that will endure the stresses
of handling, transportation, storage, sale, and
consumer contact. However, in order for
such products to be truly commercially suc-
cessful, consumer desires and demands must
be addressed and met with respect to the
sensory properties of such products, before
other quality dimensions become relevant
(Chambers and Bowers 1993 ). The three
sensory properties by which consumers most
readily judge meat quality are: appearance,
texture, and fl avor (Liu et al. 1995 ). Each
food product category presents its own
unique challenges in this regard, and meat is
no different. Unfortunately, fresh meat color
is short - lived and surface discoloration that
occurs during chilled and frozen storage is
considered a sign of unwholesomeness and
product deterioration (Faustman and Cassens
1990 ). The bright, cherry - red color of fresh
beef is used by consumers as an indicator
of meat quality (Cassens et al. 1988 ; Kennedy
et al. 2004 ). In red meats, consumers relate
the bright red color to freshness, while dis-
criminating against meat that has turned
brown in color (Hood and Riordan 1973 ;
Morrissey et al. 1994 ). It is because of
such sensory quality changes in fresh meat
that so much attention has focused on devel-
opments within the area of packaging tech-
nologies, especially in the last twenty to
thirty years. In the case of beef, two impor-
tant visual clues that determine perceived
quality are color and packaging (Issanchou
1996 ).
There are four categories of preservative
packaging that can be used with raw muscle
foods. These are vacuum packs (VP), high
oxygen modifi ed atmosphere packs (high O 2
MAP), low oxygen modifi ed atmosphere
packs (low O 2 MAP), and controlled atmo-
sphere packs (CAP) (Gill and Gill 2005 ).
Over the past number of years, much research
has focused on the infl uence of modifi ed
atmosphere packaging (MAP) on meat
quality attributes and the purchasing prefer-
ences of consumers (Carpenter et al. 2001 ;
Jayasingh et al. 2002 ). Discoloration in
retail meats during display conditions may
occur as a combined function of muscle
pigment oxidation (oxymyoglobin to met-
myoglobin) and lipid oxidation in membrane
phospholipids (Sherbeck et al. 1995 ). MAP
is one of the principle methods of maintain-
ing and prolonging meat color sensory
quality.
High O 2 concentrations promote the oxy-
myoglobin (OxyMb) cherry red form of
myoglobin (O ’ Grady et al. 2000 ) but may
impact negatively on the oxidative stability
of muscle lipids and lead to the development
of undesirable fl avors (Rhee and Ziprin 1987 ;
Estevez and Cava 2004 ). The breakdown
products of lipid oxidation have been associ-