Shelf Life Testing For Foods

[FreshFoodie]

Hi There,

I am setting up a business selling cooking pastes and sauces. Before I can approach consumers/retailers, I need to identify the shelf life of my products.

I have contacted a few labs as well as various Universities but they are either not interested in helping as I am not a multi-national business or they are charging a fortune for their services . Can anyone recommend a specific Organisation that can help, specifically a small start up business like mine? Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Yendel]

For the shelf life, testing needs to be conducted on both the organoleptic and micro standards. The organoleptic can be done yourself with ideally the help of some friends by testing product on production (P) + 1 day, P+2 etc ensuring you keep note of the results. A suitable company for the micro would be ALcontrol (alcontrol.com/en/food-and-consumer-health-pan-european), you'll need to set up an account and then a suite of what micro's you want testing for (pathogens and spoilage indicators).

 

[FreshFoodie]

Many Thanks Martin for the Lab details. Presumably when you say I can test the organoleptic aspect you mean I need to smell/ taste/ check for any signs of mould etc....?

 

[Yendel]

That's correct. ALcontrol can also do the nutritionals.
Good luck with the launch.

 

[FreshFoodie]

great stuff - thank you very much!

Sophia