Shelf Life

Determining shelf life is an important issue when developing new food products, but it is difficult to fit this within commercial time constraints for long shelf life products. In these cases, some form of shelf-life prediction is useful to test the effects of new recipes. The challenge is to know the limiting factors for shelf life - which vary by product - and to develop effective testing methods.

Leatherhead performs ‘real time' and ‘accelerated' shelf life testing; the latter is a useful predictive tool for both NPD and troubleshooting. We test at a range of controlled temperature, humidity and light conditions, tailored for each product type.

Services include:

Measurement of shelf life
Reformulation to extend shelf life
Solving structural breakdown issues e.g. separation, precipitation, graining
Microstructural assessment of changes during storage
Accelerated shelf life testing of ingredients and products under controlled conditions
Sensory profiling using a highly experienced trained panel, to give a complete description of product quality characteristics and the way in which they change
Benchmarking using a screened consumer panel, to give a cost-effective picture of likely consumer response
Quantitative consumer testing using a representative consumer population, to give a complete and statistically valid picture of consumer response
Challenge studies to assess the safety and shelf life of foods and a significant part of our efforts have been dedicated to identifying and developing natural compounds as preservatives