6 replies to this topic

[ruzelle]

Hi team! Can you help me out? Please share here the existing laws for shelf life extension in the US? Thanks!

[kfromNE]

In the US you need shelf life studies. Your supplier may have done a shelf life study and be able to extend it out.

A reference from a credible source can also work. So a source from a university or government website. A scientific study would also work.

I've done this with ingredients and not products we produce.

[SQFconsultant]

Very simple - you need to establish shelf life by doing a documented shelf-life study. If you want to extend shelf life dating ... repeat step one.

[Ryan M.]

Very few products in the US have an FDA specified shelf-life.  Almost zero food products have this (very few exceptions).

 

What is your goal?  Do you have expiring ingredients you wish to use?  Do you have expiring finished products you want to extend and ship/sell?  Do you have a customer that requested shelf-life extension?

[ruzelle]

Hi, due to the COVID pandemic, we have raw materials that were wasted due to expiration. Though we have shelf-life studies on our products, however, the top management wants to extend the shelf life to mitigate the cost. But, due to time constraints, our R&D does not have yet an available study. with this, we would like to know if there are specific laws pertaining to SL extension. 

[Charles.C]

 

Hi, due to the COVID pandemic, we have raw materials that were wasted due to expiration. Though we have shelf-life studies on our products, however, the top management wants to extend the shelf life to mitigate the cost. But, due to time constraints, our R&D does not have yet an available study. with this, we would like to know if there are specific laws pertaining to SL extension. 

 

 

I presume this is with respect to product destined for marketing in US.

 

^^^(red) -  it's unlikely since, based on previous threads here, afaik any implemented date labelling has no  legal implications in USA. So there are presumably no necessity for shelf life laws.

 

Nonetheless, I would have thought that you are (haccp) logically required to consider relevant safety/non-safety aspects involved in any contemplated extension of product shelf-life. (Just as you presumably validated the existing storage limitations).

 

On the other hand there exist IIRC  US "Guidelines" for, just for example, maximum storage timed of various food "products" in defined conditions.

[Ryan M.]

In this case best to reach out to your suppliers to get their recommendations.  Suppliers can give you evaluation methods and even some suppliers will evaluate / test the material if you send them samples.  At a previous life it was a service our company would offer since we had a number of customers who would run into this issue due to mis-rotation, over ordering, or products not selling as they had hoped.

 

 

Hi, due to the COVID pandemic, we have raw materials that were wasted due to expiration. Though we have shelf-life studies on our products, however, the top management wants to extend the shelf life to mitigate the cost. But, due to time constraints, our R&D does not have yet an available study. with this, we would like to know if there are specific laws pertaining to SL extension.