a b s t r a c tThe objectives of this work were to determine the influence of the application of two different coatings (galactomannan and chitosan) and of storage temperature on the gas exchange rate of ''Regional" cheese; subsequently, the coating that showed the greatest influence on the cheese gas exchange and simultaneously decreased the O 2 consumption ðR O 2 Þ and the CO 2 production ðR CO 2 Þ rates was applied on cheese, being the shelf-life parameters monitorized through the performance of chemical and microbiological analyses. Both coatings caused a reduction of R O 2 and R CO 2 of the cheese (between 0.19-and 1.30-fold for R O 2 and between 0.19-and 1.50-fold for R CO 2 , depending on the temperatures). The cheese coated with the galactomannan coating was the one with the lower values of R O 2 (between 0.195 and 0.635 mL kg À1 h À1 ) and R CO 2 (between 0.125 and 0.900 mL kg À1 h À1 ). Temperature was also found to have an important effect on R O 2 and R CO 2 , its influence being well described by an Arrhenius equation with coefficients of determination, R 2 , of 0.85 and above. The chemical and microbiological analyses showed that the application of the coating in cheese samples can be used to decrease the water loss and the colour changes during the storage time. The presence of the coating decreased the moisture loss of the cheese in 2.5% and 1.9%, and the weight loss in 3.8% and 3.1% at 4°C and 20°C, respectively. Also, the hardness of the cheese can be decreased as a result of the interaction of the presence of the coating with changes in the storing temperature. In the studied range (4-20°C) temperature has a statistically significant effect in moisture loss, colour change, hardness and total mesophilic bacterial growth.Overall, galactomannan coating can be used to improve ''Regional" cheese shelf-life as it decreases R O 2 and R CO 2 , improves its weight and appearance and can be used to incorporate natural preservatives to reduce post contamination.

Active packaging (AP) and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) technologies are shelf-life extension techniques introduced in the last decades in the food industry as a response to the continuous changes in consumer demands and market trends. MAP relies on the modification of the surrounding gas composition solely from the interplay between product metabolism (respiration) and package permeability, while AP is a more innovative technique in which the packaging, or some element of it, also interacts actively with the product to achieve greater shelf-life extension or improve safety or sensory properties. It is possible to design such packages by trial and error, but the most suitable approach is to deploy design engineering methods, based on quantitative models relating the relevant factors influencing respiration rate and gas transfer and the MAP/AP systems. This text provides a review of these tools, as well as their main applications.

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