In this work a model of shelf life of carbonated drinks has been proposed and validated by experimental results. The model takes into consideration the weight of bottle and storage temperature, allowing for a good agreement with the explored two parameters.The carbonation decrement does not appear to depend on bottle weight, although diffusive non-uniformity is observed depending on polyethylene terephthalate thickness distribution, given by the bottle manufacture. An adequate initial carbonation favors the extension of shelf life up to 20%, in the explored case. The importance of a controlled storage temperature is confirmed, as the diffusion of gas through polyethylene terephthalate is accelerated
with temperature: a fourfold increase of temperature from 10 C yields a 83% higher gas loss.The model created in this work can be used as a design and verification tool for predicting shelf life in any carbonic beverage, and can be easily supplemented with the dependence on filling level among other product and storage parameters. Its results can be
employed to rapidly establish the ‘‘best used by’’ date variation, depending of some manufacturing practice change, so that the desired features can be ensured.