Storage studies of restructured products from beef, mutton and turkey

E. C. Chuah1, Q. L. Yeoh1 and J. Mohd. Yunus2

Abstract

Restructured steak-like products were produced from low quality cuts of beef and mutton as well as spent turkey meat, vacuum packed in aluminium laminate bags and stored at –20°C. Organoleptic qualities and colour of these products were still acceptable after 12 months of storage. The redness value of the beef product decreased slightly from an initial a* value of 11.57 to 9.64, while that for mutton showed a greater decrease from 18.00 to 8.92. On the other hand, the whiteness value of the turkey steak did not change much, with L* values ranging from 46.72 to 49.55. Although the thiobarbituric acid value increased with storage time for all the three samples, there were no adverse comments from the taste panelists on any off-flavour. Total viable counts were in the range of 10 6 cfu/g for both the restructured beef and turkey products throughout the storage period while that for mutton product was slightly lower at 10 4–10 5  cfu/g. No organisms of public health significance were detected in all the samples. Overall the microbiological counts were still within the acceptable limits at the end of the storage period.

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