. 2024 Sep 7;13(17):2841. doi: 10.3390/foods13172841

Table 3.

Influence of packaging film treatments on the instrumental surface color of ground beef.

	Surface Color Parameters ¹
	Lightness (L*)	Redness (a*)	Yellowness (b*)
Packaging Treatment ²
T1	47.87 ^a	20.46 ^b	13.51 ^a
T2	47.24 ^b	21.44 ^a	12.90 ^b
T3	47.70 ^a	21.76 ^a	12.65 ^b
Storage Day ³
0	40.92 ^Z	20.29 ^Y	13.49 ^V
7	46.88 ^Y	21.62 ^VW	12.17 ^Y
14	48.22 ^X	22.29 ^V	12.66 ^X
21	48.91 ^W	22.02 ^V	13.06 ^WX
28	49.70 ^V	21.19 ^WX	13.10 ^VW
35	49.74 ^V	20.69 ^XY	13.20 ^VW
42	48.84 ^WX	20.44 ^XY	13.45 ^VW
p-value (Day) *	<0.0001	<0.0001	<0.0001
p-value (Treatment) **	0.0116	<0.0001	<0.0001
p-value (Day × Treatment) ***	0.5925	0.0919	0.8965
SEM (Day) *	0.223	0.284	0.150
SEM (Treatment) **	0.146	0.186	0.098

¹ Surface color parameters: L* values are a measure of darkness to lightness (a larger value indicates a lighter color); a* values are a measure of redness (a larger value indicates a redder color); and b* values are a measure of yellowness (a larger value indicates a more yellow color). ² Packaging treatments are defined as follows: T1 (150 µ polyethylene/EVOH/polyethylene coextrusion), T2 (175 µ polyethylene /EVOH/ polyethylene coextrusion), and T3 (200 µ polyethylene /EVOH/ /polyethylene coextrusion). ³ Storage day refers to 42 days of refrigerated storage with constant light exposure in the retail cases following 21 days of frozen storage. ^a,b Mean values within the main effect of treatment for color measurements lacking common superscripts differ (p < 0.05). ^V–Z Mean values within the main effect of day for color measurement lacking common superscripts differ (p < 0.05). p-value *: packaging treatment main effect, p-value **: effect of storage day main effect, and p-value ***: packaging treatment × storage day interaction. SEM *: standard error of the mean for packaging treatment, SEM **: standard error of the mean for storage day.