Through a special arrangement, what follows is an excerpt of a current article from Refrigerated & Frozen Foods Retailer magazine, presented here for discussion.
There is no regulation whatever of manufacturer statements concerning the shelf life of their refrigerated products. None. A manufacturer can tell you -- through guile or simple ignorance -- that their product has a 60-day shelf life when in fact 30 days would be a stretch.
So it's entirely possible that someday one of these "generously" dated products will make one of your customers sick, opening you to legal liability and a media circus. Incredibly, the whole process is self-policed by individual manufacturers who use whatever testing system they feel like. To protect everybody -- retailers, consumers and reputable manufacturers alike -- this time bomb must be defused.
The vast majority of manufacturers are ethical and professional. But come on. Let's take a reality check. Competition is tough, and if a manufacturer knows it can gain an advantage in the market with a longer shelf life, there is pressure to bend the rules. This pressure can be expected to extend to the struggling independent lab afraid of losing a contract if it turns in results that are not to the manufacturer's liking. What's more, some well-meaning labs without sufficient expertise might inadvertently provide inaccurate test results.
With no universally recognized standards for testing, what we have here is the Perfect Storm. What's amazing in this red-alert age of food safety is that this has somehow all slipped past the security checkpoints.
When we first heard about this lack of regulation, we simply couldn't believe it. We'd expect this sort of thing from a Third World Country or perhaps from our comrades in China. But here?
So we were astonished when told of the problem by Martin Mitchell, technical director of the Refrigerated Foods Association and managing director of Certified Laboratories. Mr. Mitchell co-authored an 18-page set of protocols back in October 2002 that you can download from www.refrigeratedfoods.org (click on "Resources," and scroll down to "Shelf Life Protocol Study."). We'd encourage you to download this document and check it against whatever standards you may be using. But don't stop there. Contact the Refrigerated Foods Association and other trade groups and tell them you'd like to revive the issue. For whatever reason, Mr. Mitchell's set of protocols didn't gain enough traction five years ago to become accepted by the entire industry. It would be foolish and unconscionable for the industry to wait five more years until standards are put in place -- perhaps by the government.
Mr. Mitchell is one of those solid types who knows his stuff and who doesn't have his ego on the line. "You need to be sure that a claim is based on real science, and not just on what a rep might say to make the sale," he says. "If a new or better set of protocols is established, that's okay with me. But we all need to begin talking the same language."
Amen to that.
Discussion Question: Are you also surprised that there aren't any universally recognized testing standards for the shelf life of refrigerated products? What type of legal liabilities does this present for retailers? What do you think is the challenge of enacting standard testing guidelines?