Cold Atmospheric Plasma Pre-Treatment Extends the Shelf-Life of Ready-to-Eat Drunk Red Shrimp (Solenocera Crassicornis) Stored at Chilled Conditions

Abstract

The present study investigated the combined effect of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) pre-treatment on the quality of ready-to-eat drunk red shrimp (Solenocera crassicornis) during chilled storage. The results demonstrated that the CAP pre-treatment significantly maintained the texture properties, myofibrillar protein (MP) content and a more stable histological structure of muscle fibers of the drunk shrimp compared to the control treatment. Furthermore, the CAP pre-treatment significantly inhibited the total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) content, polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity, and total viability count (TVC) values compared to the control samples. High-throughput sequencing results indicated that the CAP pre-treatment significantly reduced the diversity and abundance of several bacteria in the shrimp, as compared to the control samples. Gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) analysis detected that the CAP pre-treatment effectively maintained the stability of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These findings provide valuable theoretical support for the processing and storage of ready-to-eat drunk shrimp.

Keywords: cold atmospheric plasma, red shrimp, microbiological analysis, volatile organic compounds, chilled storage