Paneer (Indian cottage cheese) is a highly perishable commodity with short shelf‐life which restricts the farmers from stocking up yak milk paneer and marketing their products in the high‐altitude regions. Therefore, it is meaningful to establish shelf‐life prediction models (Arrhenius model and modified Gompertz model) based on physicochemical and microbial qualities of vacuum‐packed yak milk paneer under different storage conditions. With the increase in storage duration, all the physicochemical and microbial qualities of vacuum‐packed yak milk paneer were affected significantly (p < .05) for both P1 (76 µ) and P2 (127 µ) packages under a temperature range of 8–24°C. Arrhenius model showed the following order of susceptibility of physicochemical parameters to temperature change, i.e., pH>tyrosine value>titratable acidity>total free fatty acid>moisture content and titratable acidity>tyrosine value>pH>moisture content>total free fatty acid in P1 and P2 package, respectively. According to modified Gompertz model (R2 ≥ 0.79), the highest microbial growth (μmax) was observed for P1 package at 24°C.
Practical applications
To explore the wider consumer palate, yak milk paneer was prepared and evaluated under different storage conditions by using predictive modeling, i.e., Arrhenius model and modified Gompertz model. Therefore, this approach could be advantageously used to predict the influence of packaging materials and storage conditions of dairy products whose quality is strictly related to growth of spoilage microorganisms.