Shelf life refers to the end of consumer acceptability, and is the time
at which majority of consumers are displeased with the product [19].
Dried Capsicum slices were analyzed for its sensory qualities during
storage by untrained panellists using 9.0 hedonic scale for overall
acceptability. Hedonic testing is of limited use in shelf life evaluation
but is commonly used. According to Griffiths [20], significant changes
in descriptive rating does not necessary translate to significant
difference in acceptability, suggesting a conflict between statistical
and commercial significance. Here, the sensor score varied between 7
and 8 for both red and yellow capsicum. This indicated that overall
acceptability did not change significantly in the entire storage period.
From ANOVA (Table 1 and 2), a non-significant change in the sensory
score as also evident from mean values (Table 8) where mean values
difference always less than corresponding critical values (CD) at 5% (
P< 0.05) for each packaging material (Figure 6).