20 replies to this topic

[DavidAR]

for the purposes of this post, we store product as dry ambient,

 

A customer asked me what does that mean?

 

Only thing i could reply was not in a chiller / freezer.

 

it got me thinking, what does ambient temperatures range? this is basic food safety i think but my brain is drawing a blank.

 

Would ambient be essentially dry condition of nominal temperature range consistant with known locations of storage?

 

i.e Dry ambient in middle East may be alot higher than england for sure?

[Merit]

Ambient temperature generally is the air temperature of the surrounding air. Dry embient does not take into account surrounding humidity or moisture in the air. From what I understand these ranges with regions.

[DavidAR]

this is what i thought!

 

its interesting because we state on our product that it must be stored in cool dry place off the floor, but one mans cool is another mans hot!

[Dr Vu]

merit is right.generally its 9-40deg C..anything below or above might not qualify.

[Charles.C]

Hi David,

 

I agree it's an ambiguous term depending on one's location when reading the label.

 

It could even be significant, eg canned foods may need a boosted process if intended to be shipped from a "cold" to a "hot" location and stored at "ambient".

[DavidAR]

Well im glad im not the only one that thinks this, i feel a little less stupid :)

 

With the 9 to 40 degrees is this a documented fact? or is this meerly a logical approach when considering temperature danger zones etc?

[Simon]

Interesting question. 

 

Any product that DOES NOT require temperature control for food safety or quality assurance can be stored ambient. If your product can be negatively affected within the distribution of normal environmental temperature within its life cycle then it is not ambient. 

 

Here is a link to some interesting UK guidance on temperature control I came across.

 

Food Temperature Control

 

Regards,
Simon

 

 

[DavidAR]

thanks, i have seen and have this file to hand in my information sources and for most it is fairly logical,

 

it does not really state specificaly any requirement for our product more the case where a product must have  a control it then mentions that.

 

Our product is dry, Aw.65 and is ambient by all definitions i can think of. a good way of looking at it is how you mention aboved that if it can be affected by temperature during its life at any distribution stage it would not be ambient so by that good logic it then is.

 

funny, storing our product at in chilled environment such as a fridge at 4 degrees makes the product brittle :) but thats a quality related matter.

[PSC]

BRC Issue 7 says greater than 41F.

[Charles.C]

Hi David,

 

Google to the Rescue ?

 

Shelf-stable food (sometimes ambient food) is food of a type that can be safely stored at room temperature in a sealed container. This includes foods that would normally be stored refrigerated but which have been processed so that they can be safely stored at room or ambient temperature for a usefully long shelf life. For instance, the first shelf-stable formulation of ranch dressing, created in 1983, had a shelf life of 150 days

 

https://en.wikipedia...elf-stable_food

(the cross-link to "shelf-life" [unintentionally?] demonstrates the potential confusion from labelling terminologies).

 

And a slightly “looser”  viewpoint –

Ambient is a term used within the food and drink manufacturing industry when concerning either product types or storage. Ambient products are not like chilled foods that require a chilled environment or like frozen foods that require a frozen environment; they are in fact products that require (??)  an ambient temperature - described as being the temperature of the surroundings, or in some cases 'room temperature'.

 

Ambient products are what form a good portion of a supermarket and can include (but are not limited to) Soft drinks, Confectionery, tea and coffee, biscuits, cereals, tinned fish, tinned meat, tinned fruit, tinned soup, rice, and pasta.

 

Ambient products will often have a very long shelf life and are low risk and low cost (??!) purchases for the consumer.

 

https://www.focusman...bient-products/

 

Reminds me of a previous thread here regarding a UK supermarket's enterprising  display of  "ambient sausage rolls". The result from memory was a rapid "corrective action".

 

Perhaps it's simply preferable to restrict the use of "ambient" to "storage".

[Simon]

BRC Issue 7 says greater than 41F.

 

Charles I think you missed PSC's significant comment.

 

@PCS

Is it possible to post what it says in the BRC 7 in greater detail to give your comment context?

 

...and calling all other GFSI standard users - what does your standard say about ambient...something or nothing?

 

Regards,

Simon

[Charles.C]

Charles I think you missed PSC's significant comment.

 

@PCS

Is it possible to post what it says in the BRC 7 in greater detail to give your comment context?

 

...and calling all other GFSI standard users - what does your standard say about ambient...something or nothing?

 

Regards,

Simon

 

 

Hi Simon,

 

I think the quote is (PSC pls correct if otherwise) –

 

The finished products are stored at ambient temperatures (i.e. greater than 5°C)

 

Specifically as located in the Standard, the text excludes “chilled/frozen” goods from BRC designated “ambient high care” zone. (5degC is I think the UK home refrigerator chilled  target temperature level).

 

Unable to locate any other numeric interpretations of ambient temperature. (GFSI unchecked).

 

So IMO the quantitative answer (so far) to the OP is “indeterminate”. The “not chilled/frozen” response in OP was probably OK  for UK if the supplier is confident of (long-term) shelf-stability/safety at the maximum intended storage temperature.

 

“ambient product/food” is a dangerous terminology IMO.

 

PS - interesting to note that BRC have 2 zone-related products within their ambient product category. One wonders if the high care items are regarded as "low risk products" despite being shelf-stable, eg peanut butter.

[PSC]

On page 105 of the BRC Version 7 manual it states when explaining what an Ambient High-Care area is (which I believe is new to Version 7), "The finished products are stored at ambient temperatures (i.e. greater than 41F)."

 

I believe what BRC is trying to say is that anything below 41F would be considered a chilled or frozen product, thus not allowing it be shelf stable at "ambient" temperatures. I know that the BRC manual is specifically discussing designated areas within a manufacturing facility. However, I believe it is relevant to what is considered ambient temperature when on the shelf for consumers. I also believe they didn't distinguish a range (i.e. a maximum temp) because BRC is only referring to manufactured products, not something that for instance would be cooked at a fast food restaurant or grocery store that would need to be kept heated until consumption. I would assume that the BRC would not make the claim of 41F arbitrarily, as there would need to be some sort of evidence to prove that products will not grow pathogens above that temp (also being that generally speaking a consumer store air temps are usually around 70F).

 

I also found an Oxford Journal entry about the effects of high ambient temperature (32 to 38°C or 90F to 100F) on broiler chickens, which seems really high for what is generally understood as "ambient temperature."

[Charles.C]

Hi PSC,

 

Thanks for yr interesting post.

 

IMO this topic is mainly commercial semantics mixed with a dash of Food Science. And specifically UK food semantics. Legally valid UK definitions for “ambient food” seem to be elusive.

 

I suspect there is no official UK definition of “ambient food”. If there is, I could not find it. The nearest reasonably brief one I could think of (à la post 7) is a product which is shelf-stable within its stated shelf-life/storage temperature and which is not officially temperature-classifiable as a chilled food.

 

The FSA document in post 7 is perhaps the nearest guideline to an official UK opinion and also apparently  “relates”  to EC Regulation 852/2004.

 

Note that there is no specific mention in the FSA document of any of the entities – ambient/chilled/frozen foods. There is an occasional mention of “ambient temperature” which is also undefined but may seemingly be estimated as applicable to this FSA document (see below)

 

As I interpret the FSA document (eg para 24), from a temperature POV, “chilled foods” are required to be held at a maximum of 8deg C. The precise reason for choosing 8 degC is afai could see unspecified but I predict it relates to  UK refrigerator tolerances.

 

Accordingly the lower UK temperature bound in my above suggestion for AF would be a value > 8 degC with a (so far) undefined upper limit.

 

BRC seem to have an alternative opinion to FSA albeit with an equally unexplained origin. Perhaps the former is intended to be more (geographically) general.

 

I wonder if any other country actually, commercially, uses “ambient food” terminology.?

 

I think the OPs original UK response was not unreasonable although numerically ambiguous.

 

Personally I would not advise a customer that there is no upper limit.

 

Here’s an example for when the commercial semantics went wrong –

 

http://www.express.c...t-sausage-rolls

 

PS - Sadly my confidence in Wiki has been shattered by their definition of chilled foods –

 

Chilled food is food that is stored at refrigeration temperatures, which are at or below 0 – −5 °C (32–23 °F). The key requirements for chilled food products are good quality and microbiological safety at the point of consumption. They have been available in the United Kingdom, United States, and many other industrialized countries since the 1960s

.

(But I daresay it’s valid somewhere)

 

PPS - heres an interesting analysis of "ambient" -

 

http://www.worldwide...rds/tw-amb1.htm

[DavidAR]

its always good to know that questions i ask result in many a smart man/ woman to debate the issue, i don't feel so stupid

 

i personally would love to avoid using ambient in any terms but its there any hence my being devils advocate and asking thew question, google doesn't appear to like me as much as you Charles: but i love the whole "room temperature" POV in your quote, again what is room temperature? lol

 

i think logically if the product is stable microbiologicly, it is not refrigerated or frozen, then logically i would argue that ambient would be any temperature range within danger zone of 5-63 degrees. as technically perhaps i'm wrong here 63 onward would be the starting temperatures for cooking / kill steps for unstable microbiologicly food stuffs?

 

 

Also Page 105 of my V7 standard is to do with product categories. Page 97 talks about ambient high care and mentions that - te finished product are stored at ambient temperatures greater than 5 degrees, but again this is AMBIENT HIGH CARE not a low care product.

 

Still, the 5 degrees supports the logical statement above albeit 50% unconfirmed.

[Charles.C]

Hi David,

 

I daresay not a problem in UK but the choice of  “ambient temperature” maximum may require other considerations than which you mention.

 

This F0 (process lethality requirement) extract illustrates why shelf-stable canned goods processed for storage in  a “cool” environment might fail in a tropical scenario.

 

 canned foods process requirements vs storage temperature.pdf   35.63KB   47 downloads

 

Regarding the "danger zone", here is a little more context -

 

http://www.foodsafet...ne-reevaluated/

 

Not sure if you realize that BRC is a Private standard ?

[DavidAR]

That was an extremely interesting post, if i understand right the gist of it is:

 

Although there is a legal so called danger zone! which is used as a best practice and is taught out the actual danger zones will vary depending on the product and its potential risks.

 

Essentially for each final product the so called danger zone may be completely different from one product to another especialy if the micro hazards associated are completely different. 

[Charles.C]

Hi david,

 

Well, the 4-5degC bottom end is good for a large number of common pathogens, eg enteric group, but thanks to microbial diversity there are always exceptions.

 

L.monocytogenes is ubiquitous in the environment, psychrotrophic so grows at chilled storage temperatures and can be nasty, eg -

 

http://www.foodsafet...heets/listeria/

[Jinski]

A very interesting thread as this is an issue I come across on a regular basis when I try to explain that it is not sensible to store dry food itesm, cans, uht products, soft drinks and water at temperatures of 30 degrees plus, especially when the humidity is over 70%.

 

Janet

[DavidAR]

Luckily for me our product groups are all dry with low .65 Aw's

 

very difficult for most pathogens to thrive.

[Charles.C]

Luckily for me our product groups are all dry with low .65 Aw's

 

very difficult for most pathogens to thrive.

 

You might try Googling "Peanut Butter Salmonella". Growth is not the only micro. hazard to be wary of.