Application of different kinds of packaging to prevent greying of a special type of chilled sausages

Chilled sausages react very sensitive to oxygen and light. This results even in presence of small amounts of oxygen, in a strong greying of the sausages. This leads to a rejection by the consumer and therefore to economic losses of the retail. Therefore there is a great need to protect sausages from discolouration (greying). Objective of this study was to investigate different kinds of packaging of a special type of chilled sausages (""Leberkäse"") in order to prevent greying. Investigations showed that sausages stored for three weeks at 5 °C under exclusion of light kept its red colour (a*-value: 8.3±0.4). Moreover packages with additionally adding an oxygen scavenger label showed a protective effect of the oxygen scavenger system on colour stability of the sausages. In combination with an adapting time of three days in darkness before exposing the packages to light (approx. 1000 lx) this led to a maintenance of the red colour of the sausages (a*-value: 8.3±0.4 (week 0); 8.1±0.2 (week 3)). The results of the study showed that packaging sausages in darkness (e.g. in non-transparent packages) or by adding an oxygen scavenger label (in combination with an adapting time) to the package can lead to a protection of the red colour of sausages.