Adapting to New Consumption Trends: Shelf Life Studies of Food Products

New food trends are driving changes not only in the products we buy but also in their origins and preparation methods. From a food safety perspective, this creates new challenges that require adapting hygiene levels to meet new demands. To ensure the safety of products throughout their shelf life, the conditions and types of shelf life studies of food products (EVU) must be tailored to these evolving requirements. Lets explore this with a practical example. As stated, new consumption trends, new food types, or foods produced or cooked differently from traditional methods require adapting product hygiene conditions and testing. To illustrate this, lets focus on the raw food trend, particularly the consumption of raw or undercooked meat. In this page:

Raw or Undercooked Meat: Ensuring Safety
Types of Shelf Life Studies (EVU) or Challenge Tests
Conclusion: Selecting the Right Shelf Life Study for Your Product

Raw or Undercooked Meat: Ensuring Safety

One of the first questions we ask is how safe raw or undercooked meats are. The recommendation is to cook whole meats to over 65°C and minced meats to over 70-75°C, maintaining these temperatures for more than two minutes. These cooking times are, in fact, higher than what chefs typically recommend for rare meats, where beef, pork, and even minced products like burgers are commonly served to highlight the product’s natural characteristics. But how should we assess the safety of our products if they are to be served undercooked? What kind of shelf life studies of food products or Challenge Tests should we perform? And under what conditions should we carry out these tests?

Types of Shelf Life Studies (EVU) or Challenge Tests

Different products, processes, distribution methods, and cooking techniques require adapting the type of shelf life study of food products and its conditions specifically to each case. To meet these changing and specific needs, whether due to the type of product, distribution method, or consumption (e.g., if a product is going to be served raw in restaurants), there are three main types of EVU or Challenge Tests:

EVU for Natural Alterants or Pathogens

This involves studying the evolution of microbial flora, either for product safety or for maintaining organoleptic properties. The flora examined is naturally present in the productno pathogens are intentionally inoculated. The conditions selected must be as demanding as or more so than those expected during the products shelf life.

Microbial Stability with Challenge Tests

This method examines the stability of the product by assessing the ability of certain pathogens or spoilage microorganisms, intentionally inoculated into the product, to grow or survive under specific environmental conditions. Analytical monitoring is done to track the growth of these microorganisms over a defined shelf life. This can also be complemented by studying the effectiveness of thermal treatments applied at the point of sale to destroy the inoculated microorganisms, particularly for products meant for sale in restaurants.

Listeria Growth Potential Study

The evaluation of the potential growth of Listeria monocytogenes is carried out through Challenge Tests, enabling classification of foods into two categories defined by EU Regulation 2073/2005:

Category 1.2: Ready-to-eat foods that can support the growth of Listeria monocytogenes.
Category 1.3: Ready-to-eat foods that cannot support the growth of Listeria monocytogenes.

These studies also allow producers to determine the final concentration of Listeria monocytogenes based on detected levels from the time of manufacture. This helps assess whether the product will meet the 100 cfu/g limit by the end of its shelf life, and it defines the initial concentration of Listeria needed to respect this limit.

Conclusion: Selecting the Right Shelf Life Study for Your Product

At AINIA, we have extensive experience in conducting shelf life studies of food products across various product types. We can assist you in selecting the right study, at the lowest possible cost, to ensure the safety of your products under the real conditions in which they will be consumed. We help define the limits of these conditions so you can communicate them to your customers and demonstrate compliance during inspections, audits, and third-party assessments.