Fruit juice beverages must contain a minimum fruit content between 6 and 30 %, depending on the type of fruit used. Furthermore, in addition to sugar or artificial sweeteners, aroma extracts and natural aromas may be employed.
This method describes the procedure for conducting a stress test on non-alcoholic beverages.
Non-alcoholic beverages (soft drinks, beverages containing fruit juice)
The time required to develop a product – from conception to launch on the market – is steadily shrinking. Since recipes are also becoming ever more complex and a wide range of different types of packaging are now employed, forced stability tests have become absolutely essential, in order to establish a realistic indication of a product’s shelf-life.
Inferences about the shelf life of a product can only be made if the entire beverage concept is taken into consideration, such as the recipe, filling technology, packaging and distribution.
The most important stress factors in the aging process are heat, light and oxygen.
PET bottles have become a popular form of packaging for non-alcoholic beverages, and their permeability to gas, most especially oxygen, is therefore a critical parameter in the aging process
The testing process described below operates, of course, on the assumption that the chemical reactions in the aging process are subject to the same mechanisms, whether they occur at temperatures typical for beverage storage or at somewhat elevated temperatures, and that they follow a linear relationship dependent on temperature. The same applies to forced photochemical reactions and to reactions brought about by an increase in the partial pressure of oxygen on the beverage. To verify results from forced testing, they can be compared and correlated to results from real-time tests on the same product.