How to Improve Your Product Shelf Life

Many food manufacturer want to extend their product shelf life but do not know what the factors that can improve it are. To find out, a detailed shelf life study is needed to determine the causes of product failure and then design a solution to it. The first step is to identify the type of product failure. This comes in the form of moldy appearance, off taste, color change, flavor change, aroma change or that the bioburden has exceeded the food safety standards and will cause gastrointestinal problems. Usually product failure involves multiple modes and tests must be set up to study each and every cause. For each study, third party sensory evaluation is needed as well as laboratory test to measure bacterial growth, vitamin loss, color changes and rancidity. To save time, accelerated shelf studies in controlled atmosphere to simulate the best and worst case scenario are often carried out. Once the problem is identified, solutions can be found like; mold issues can be solved by addition of preservatives, or by lowering the water activity; rancidity can be countered with the addition of antioxidants; loss of nutritional values can be solved by increasing the initial nutrient contest like vitamins in your product.

Finally monitoring the solution as a HACCP control point will be necessary, for e.g.; measuring the bioburden for microbiological control; measuring oxidation by products for rancidity; measuring mycotoxins for mold; measuring the content of antioxidants. It is now known that adding an appropriate amount of antimicrobials to the finished product is not sufficient but foremost the product must be manufactured in a tightly controlled process that includes adequate hygiene.

Another way to estimate your product shelf life, especially for ready to eat foods, is to monitor the amount of psychotropic bacteria. These bacteria can grow at refrigeration temperatures and are regularly found in food. Psychotropic bacteria are usually monitored by enumerating pseudomonas.