Volume 44 Issue 4 (August 2025) 685 RESEARCH ARTICLE Asian Journal of Dairy and Food Research, Volume 44 Issue 4: 685-690 (August 2025) Quality and Shelf Life of Ready to Cook Mozzarella Cheese Stick Snack with Different Packaging Materials and Methods under Refrigerated Storage Ruchika Joshi 1 , Jagbir Rehal 1 , Amarjit Kaur 1 , K.S. Minhas 1 10.18805/ajdfr.DR-1822 ABSTRACT Background: The effect of packaging material (polyethylene and laminated pouches) and method of packaging (atmospheric and vacuum packaging) on the shelf-life of mozzarella cheese stick snacks stored under refrigerated conditions was studied. Methods: The work was carried out in 2019-20 when the mozzarella cheese preparation and the process to make a battered and breaded mozzarella cheese sticks snacks were standardized. The snacks were then studied for its quality and shelf life in different packaging materials (polythene and laminated pouches) under atmospheric and vacuum conditions under refrigerated conditions. Result: There was a significant increase in acidity, free fatty acids (% oleic acid) and non-protein nitrogen of the samples during refrigerated storage. Though the chemical changes were not so great as to render the product unacceptable, however the refrigeration temperature resulted in a rapid increase in the microbial count. As a result, the samples with atmospheric packaging showed visible microbial growth on the 12 th day while those with vacuum packaging spoiled on the 13 th day. Key words: Mozzarella cheese sticks snacks, Packaging, Pre-frying, Quality, Refrigerated storage, Shelf-life. INTRODUCTION Mozzarella cheese is a soft unripened cheese variety of the pasta-filata family and has a unique property called stretchability- ability to form fibres or strings when hot (Jana and Tagalpallewar, 2017). Though mozzarella cheese is used in a variety of preparations in foreign countries such as lasagne, veal cutlet, allaparmagiana, bruschetta, etc., its use in India is limited as toppings on pizza. However, apart from the traditional pizza topping mozzarella cheese can be used for the preparation of fried snack foods, a product similar to the traditional paneer pakora, but yet different from it due to the inherent stretching and melting characteristics of mozzarella cheese (Mijan et al., 2010). The snack market is predominant with potato-based products in the vegetarian section which are invariably high in carbohydrates and lacking in protein. Cheese has high protein content and ready-to-cook snacks made with it will fill this gap in the market. Moreover, convenient ready-to- cook snacks are getting popular owing to the ease attached to them. The present investigation aimed at developing a convenient mozzarella cheese sticks snack and studying their shelf-life stability and quality under refrigerated storage. MATERIALS AND METHODS Raw materials The work was carried out in the Department of Food Science and Technology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana in the year 2019-20. Fresh, whole buffalo milk, commercial citric acid, gram flour, wheat flour, eggs, breadcrumbs, salt, black pepper, sugar, Bakery shortening ( Gagan Brand, manufactured by Gagan Vanaspati Ltd.), Baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and frying oil (Rice bran oil of brand “Ricella”) were obtained from local market. Commercial powdered microbial rennet was procured from Valiren Valley Inc., U.S.A. and kept at refrigerated temperature. Preparation of mozzarella cheese All equipment were washed and sanitized with 50 ppm of chlorine. Pasteurized water was used during all stages of cheese making. For the preparation of desirable quality cheese, milk with fat percentage of 1, 3 and 5% were taken initially. Snacks containing cheese with 1 per cent fat milk showed significantly lower mean sensory scores for flavour, texture and chewability and hence these were rejected. There was no significant difference in the sensory scores for cheese snacks prepared from milk adjusted to 3 and 5 per cent fat levels. But in preparation of cheese with 1 Department Food Science and Technology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab, India. Corresponding Author: Jagbir Rehal, Department Food Science and Technology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab, India. Email: jagbir@pau.edu How to cite this article: Joshi, R., Rehal, J., Kaur, A. and Minhas, K.S. (2025). Quality and Shelf Life of Ready to Cook Mozzarella Cheese Stick Snack with Different Packaging Materials and Methods under Refrigerated Storage. Asian Journal of Dairy and Food Research. 44(4): 685-690. doi: 10.18805/ajdfr.DR-1822. Submitted: 13-10-2021 Accepted: 23-02-2022 Online: 11-05-2022