BRC 5.1.3 - Shelf Life Trials

Sorry about all the questions. We have an audit coming up the middle of November and its our first one. For this clause about Shelf Life Trials is this just for new product designs or do we need to have recorded documents to prove any of our shelf life claims?

Well at some point your existing products would have been new so yes, I would expect to see some documentation proving the shelf life. If you don't have this, consider whether you can do some work retrospectively.

Sorry about all the questions. We have an audit coming up the middle of November and its our first one. For this clause about Shelf Life Trials is this just for new product designs or do we need to have recorded documents to prove any of our shelf life claims?

Hi jenmaw;

Your existing products were also 'new' once upon a time.So you should have a shelf life trial study for them,too. Because brc covers everything ; your new and old products.
ps:You can do trial studies on very few representative samples so that it will take less time .

best regrds

Aegean

Also I would expect some simple ongoing shelf life work to continue, this can be simply achieved by taking retained samples at end of life (and if you want to be thorough you could also do end of life + a defined period depending on your product) and test microbiologically and organoleptically. This will help you see if there are any problems with your shelf life and may alert you to an issue before you start to get complaints.

I would like to add to the question.

We conduct water activity tests and have defined a range for our products to remain mold free. Is this along with sample retention and a representational samples sent to a lab for micro testing sufficient?

Regards,

EmmE

Sorry about all the questions. We have an audit coming up the middle of November and its our first one. For this clause about Shelf Life Trials is this just for new product designs or do we need to have recorded documents to prove any of our shelf life claims?

BRC Clause 5.5.1.4 also refers to shelf life and requires ongoing shelf life assessment including microbiological, sensory and relevant chemical analysis.

Regards,

Tony