Effect of grape seed extract on storage stability of buffalo veal slices at refrigeration temperature (4 ± 1°C)

Products prepared from buffalo veal being low in fat content, needs to be incorporated with additional fat to improve the quality, which challenges the oxidative stability. The grape seed extract (GSE) has been observed to have an antioxidant activity but its overall effect on product features is not well established. The results indicated that GSE incorporated in a product significantly (p ≤ .05) reduced the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances and free fatty acids values on the 12th and 16th day of storage. The subjective sensory features like color and appearance, flavor, and overall acceptability revealed that the treated samples have better scores with the progress of storage and the color values (L*, a*, and b*) too indicated the effect of GSE on objective scale. The microbial counts like total plate count, psychrotrophic count, and yeast & mold count decreased significantly (p ≤ 0.05) in GSE (0.2%) treated samples. Practical applications Quality meat is being explored worldwide for better products especially in ready to eat category and buffalo veal could be a potential alternative. Slices from the veal may become a product of choice in trending consumers. However, limitation in such products is the storage stability as they need to be stored for a period before reaching to consumption point. The meat products available over the counter in ready to eat category are susceptible for the deteriorative changes involving physico‐chemical and microbiological parameters. There is a long list of agents that can be used to check these spoilage changes but majority of them are of synthetic nature having ill‐health effect, hence there is a need to explore the natural/herbal agent having potential to check the deterioration and enhance the storage stability of meat products. In this context, GSE have been explored here for its potential application.