Shelf Life Extensions in RTE Meats?
Happy Friday All,
What are your thoughts on the extension of shelf life in rte meats? Right now production is pretty lax in extending their Best Before Dates and it is not something that I wish to continue. Their thinking is that if it looks alright and tastes alright then slap an automatic 2 week extension on it!
What type of testing should be done? I would like to have some micro testing done before any extension of shelf life, but how do I validate the results? There are a variety of suggestions for what micro counts are acceptable, but which one do I choose?
I am not sure if we really need to look to extend the shelf life dates we have set or just get through to production that product beyond shelf life needs to be discarded, not extended!
Sometimes I just don't know what people are thinking!
First of all, what products are you using & how are you using them? There's a huge difference between extending the use by date on beef jerky and a beef hot dog.
I find that most use by dates are for quality purposes, however you cannot assume that. If you're looking at micro testing 10,000 cfu seems to be a standard number. This number also depends on the intent of your product. You could test for pathogens (Listeria, salmonella, e.coli, etc.) but remember if you have a positive you need to be able to determine that prior runs were OK. The test results are validating themselves as long as the tests are being performed properly (by your lab or a 3rd party lab).
Do you have 3rd party audits? If so, You would need to have this verification & validation information in order to extend the shelf life.
Products are deli meats.
We do have 3rd party audits, but as far as I know they do not request shelf life info. As you mentioned, most issues are of a quality nature, and I think that that is our issue at hand. While production would like to here that extension of BBD is what will be happening, I think the more likely case is stronger enforcement of our current BBD.
Products are deli meats.
We do have 3rd party audits, but as far as I know they do not request shelf life info. As you mentioned, most issues are of a quality nature, and I think that that is our issue at hand. While production would like to here that extension of BBD is what will be happening, I think the more likely case is stronger enforcement of our current BBD.
P&S's post has given some good background input.
I presume yr product is meat RTE, possibly MAP, and intended to be stored/displayed chilled. Offhand I would have guessed the shelf-life is basically safety-related but it all depends on the details. I do wonder if it has a product specification or a HACCP Plan.
I don't wish to be alarmist but yr facility sounds a bit like the cliche "an accident waiting to happen". Hopefully not quite so desperate as intimated.
I suggest you initially familiarize yourself with the basic concept of date-labelling. It is a bit difficult to generalize because the precise terminologies / legal requirements vary with location and may not be black/white.
For example, the UK "concept" is introduced in plain language in the attachment here -