A food’s shelf life is when it can be stored under specific conditions without losing its nutritional value or safety. The shelf life of Food Ingredients begins when it is made and depends on various factors, including the ingredients, type of packaging, storage environment, and manufacturing process.
Reasons to review the shelf life of the Food Ingredients:
1. Create a new product
As this is when change can be most successful through product design, shelf life is the first consideration in product development. Giving a product a good shelf life is essential to its commercial success. If the shelf life assigned to a product is shorter, it may not meet the manufacturer’s ideal quality or food safety standards. However, its duration can negatively affect expenses, waste, efficiency and profit margin.
2. Customization of an existing product
A review of the plan and product shelf life should be initiated for any product formulation, packaging, manufacturing, distribution or storage changes, as both may be affected by one or more of these factors. If not carefully considered, even seemingly minor changes can have unexpected effects on the life of your product, and a series of small changes can have a significant overall impact.
3. Check from time to time
Whether the modifications are intentional or not, the product’s useful life should be evaluated periodically. It complies with periodic evaluation of procedures, plans, specifications and other components of an effective quality and food safety management system.
Verification is done to ensure the shelf life is still accurate and to see if it needs reassessment. Changes to the product, regulations or advice, commercial considerations, customer complaint information, and evidence that recommended storage conditions are not met should all be considered.
4. Use technological advances
Since you first introduced your product, improvements and new technologies may have extended its useful life. Plus, your competitors may already be using the benefits. The extent to which the packaging material allows gases, moisture, light and microbial contaminants to move through the packaging can impact the shelf life of your product. Therefore, packaging optimization is an important part of product development or innovation and will affect shelf life, potentially extending it if used correctly. For example, an “oxygen scavenger” additive can keep oxygen levels inside the package low, or other additive solutions can improve the thermal insulation or light barrier.
Conclusion
Food shelf life means when the Food Ingredients are safe to consume. It should be consumed before the end of the expiry date. In the above article, we have shared some reasons to review the product’s shelf life. If you want to know about product shelf life, consider reading this article.