Whey cheese longer shelf‐life achievement at variable uncontrolled room temperature and comparison to refrigeration

Requeijão, a Portuguese whey cheese, was selected as a case study of a highly perishable dairy product and stored at 0.1 (AP) and 100 MPa (HS) at variable room temperature (RT) (≈17–21° C) and compared with refrigeration (RT) (4° C), during two storage periods, 24 hr and 10 days. After 24 hr at AP/RT, Requeijão presented microbial counts above 6.00 log CFU/g, while after HS, total aerobic mesophiles and Enterobacteriaceae growth was inhibited. For lactic acid bacteria and yeasts and molds, HS showed an additional microbial inactivation effect, decreasing approximately 1.5 and 3.5 log CFU/g, to values below the detection limit (