February 5, 2008
R&FF Retailer: The Shelf-Life Time Bomb
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?
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While I am not an expert in the area of food safety, I am aware of an initiative which was coordinated by CIES called the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
The GFSI technical committee is composed of retailers, manufacturers, standard owners, certification bodies, accreditation bodies, industry association and other technical experts. It provides technical expertise and advice for the GFSI Board. Members include global companies such as Wal-Mart, Aeon, Carrefour, Coca Cola, Danone, EcoLab, Royal Ahold, Tesco and others.
Perhaps issues such as shelf life will be addressed by this Food Safety Initiative. It will be up to retailers and manufacturers to decide whether they want to participate, but the heavy lifting appears to have already been done. This initiative was begun in 2000.
Of interest, Wal-Mart has announced that suppliers of its private label and other food items, like produce, meat and fish, must comply with Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognized standards. They go on to encourage other retailers to “follow our lead and to also endorse these standards.”
Kudos to Warren Thayer, a “Pharaoh” for frozen and refrigerated foods, for bringing up this issue. All consumers want assurance that fresh products have the shelf life that is designated. But there is no universally recognized testing standard for refrigerated products. Why? Who really knows?
Maybe it’s because, one might presume, the supply industry hasn’t wished for one. Perhaps they think it would be too restrictive. The retailer tries to comply with stated out dates from suppliers, so suppliers get a uniform fresh code. And thanks to Warren for bringing re-newed focus on this issue.
Well-run retailers get coverage at no cost as additional insureds on the product liability insurance policies of their suppliers. The retailers also have their own liability insurance coverage, too.
The refrigerated and frozen foods industry, like other industries, only wants federal government regulation when it adds to profitability. Sometimes industries want federal regulation to prevent more stringent state and local regulations. Sometimes, when consumer-based organizations call for major new rules, the industries want federal regulations only because their lobbyists can water down the new proposals, since legislators have to show the public some kind of effort.
Until we see repeated instances of people getting hurt from unexpired refrigerated and frozen foods, it’s unlikely that there’ll be any legislative movement on this question.
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While I am not an expert in the area of food safety, I am aware of an initiative which was coordinated by CIES called the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
The GFSI technical committee is composed of retailers, manufacturers, standard owners, certification bodies, accreditation bodies, industry association and other technical experts. It provides technical expertise and advice for the GFSI Board. Members include global companies such as Wal-Mart, Aeon, Carrefour, Coca Cola, Danone, EcoLab, Royal Ahold, Tesco and others.
Perhaps issues such as shelf life will be addressed by this Food Safety Initiative. It will be up to retailers and manufacturers to decide whether they want to participate, but the heavy lifting appears to have already been done. This initiative was begun in 2000.
Of interest, Wal-Mart has announced that suppliers of its private label and other food items, like produce, meat and fish, must comply with Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognized standards. They go on to encourage other retailers to “follow our lead and to also endorse these standards.”
Kudos to Warren Thayer, a “Pharaoh” for frozen and refrigerated foods, for bringing up this issue. All consumers want assurance that fresh products have the shelf life that is designated. But there is no universally recognized testing standard for refrigerated products. Why? Who really knows?
Maybe it’s because, one might presume, the supply industry hasn’t wished for one. Perhaps they think it would be too restrictive. The retailer tries to comply with stated out dates from suppliers, so suppliers get a uniform fresh code. And thanks to Warren for bringing re-newed focus on this issue.
Well-run retailers get coverage at no cost as additional insureds on the product liability insurance policies of their suppliers. The retailers also have their own liability insurance coverage, too.
The refrigerated and frozen foods industry, like other industries, only wants federal government regulation when it adds to profitability. Sometimes industries want federal regulation to prevent more stringent state and local regulations. Sometimes, when consumer-based organizations call for major new rules, the industries want federal regulations only because their lobbyists can water down the new proposals, since legislators have to show the public some kind of effort.
Until we see repeated instances of people getting hurt from unexpired refrigerated and frozen foods, it’s unlikely that there’ll be any legislative movement on this question.