Extending shelf life of cold sauce condiment

Greetings, 

I currently am in the beginning stages of creating a cold sauce condiment. I have some issues regarding bacteria, shelf life, etc. Is there an easy way to band-aid my problem until I can spend the money to more efficiently resolve the problems.

I was thinking of adding something simple like a sodium benzoate, or citric acid, etc,. Would any of these actually help me in any meaningful way?

I had it tested and attached the findings, hope this gives more clarity. 

Any and all feedback is welcome!! 

Hi and first off welcome to this forum.

I'm relatively new here but maybe you should make a seperate topic in "Food Safety Topic" "Food Microbiology".

However, concerning your problem, I would first off like to know:

-Are these analysis right after the production?

-Are you using GHP's?

-What about your cleaning routine? 

-Do you pasteurize/sterilize your products?

I'm pretty sure someone else is far more competent to answer your question. But I think answering above questions already would help to see if adding extra conservation is required.

Maybe your initial contamination is already too big and you should evaluate your proces and raw materials.

Otherwise you can control the the growth of pathogenic microorganisms with control of pH (acidity), water activity (Aw), preservatives or packaging.

Greetings.

LeDu,

I suggest you do first paper review (if you are not so much bound by time) if you have the right recipe design and processes. Adding preservatives may not help the problem as it is not a killing step and may just add to your cost without so much of a benefit. If you have batches with good microbial result, perhaps compare it with what may have happened when you produce batches with bad microbial count. If you don't have high microbial count in your 1st analysis and the concern is you don't have long shelf-life, may be your process is not really designed to give you longer shelf-life.

It's better to make the appropriate investment towards a professional route rather than a quick-fix "baid-aid" solution.  It will save you a lot of grief later down the road.  Facts!

I can certainly help you offline and provide the appropriate guidance for your initiative.

Your pH is high enough to support growth....if you can get it below 4.1 without changing the flavor profile, you may have less issues....citric acid may help or acetic acid

Are you cooking the product at all before packaging?  You may simply need a slightly lower pH and a hot fill and hold process