Sample Retention

Product: Composite fiber board cans.

Question: I have started to retain sample cans from each lot we produce. How long would one suggest i keep the retain sample? I know in the flour world we retained for 30 days. These are unfilled cans though. I am thinking 30 days for these also???

Thank you in advance!

Brian

Brian,

I'm way new to all this but if you're holding on to actual food retention samples for 30 days, I can't see why you would logically hold non-food samples for longer. Perhaps someone a bit more knowledgeable than I can chime in.

~Emily~

Agreed Emily. What i keep running into is "Shelf Life" Flour was an unfinished product, so we got away with 30 days. Something like some frozen foods that has a shelf life of 1 year, you should retain it for 1 year plus. So on a composite can, which has no food in it, the shelf life could be a year? 2 years? I guess what i need to figure out is do i need to put a shelf life on an empty container. Our customer will maintain samples of their product, which is an actual food, for their length of pre determined shelf life. I know i am over thinking this, it's a can!

We keep our sample retains for 7 months.  The logic behind that is shelf life plus a month.  Our product's shelf life is 6 months, but consumers could buy it and keep it and legitimately use it a month past date. 

Dear Sir,

your product is cans.

The "shelf life" in your case is the maximum time these products can stay in a warehouse under foreseen conditions to be used by you and /or your customers PLUS the MAXIMUM shelf life of the longer lasting food product to be stored inside them.

In that way, whatever may happen to a product stored in them, you will have a sample to determine (potentially) the cause of any non conforming final food product that was stored in them.

Best,

Evangelos Mourelatos

Hellenic Food Authority