Survival analysis and cut-off point to estimate the shelf life of refrigerated fish burgers

Abstract The consumption of fish in Brazil is below the world average. In order to change this scenario, considering the high nutritional value of this meat, one of the strategies is to turn fish into a convenient product, such as burgers. Since fish burgers are not yet established in the market, it requires investigation of the shelf life. To that end, survival analysis and cut-off point (COP) methodologies access the perception of consumers and trained panels. Thus, the objective of this study was to estimate the shelf life of grass carp burgers, by means of the survival analysis and cut-off point. A trained sensory panel and consumers evaluated the burgers during a refrigerated storage of 30 days. Simultaneously, the pH and the reactive substances of thiobarbituric acid (TBARS) were evaluated. The TBARS results corroborated rancidity observed both with exponential growth and with correlation coefficients above 0.98. The survival analysis determined the end of the shelf life of the fish burgers after 21 days, with the COP technique indicating 17 days. Both methodologies were efficient in estimating the shelf life of the product analyzed, considering the lower result from COP adequate, since it establishes the value were the acceptability begins to decrease.