sandwich shelf life

[Rex Dasan]

HI dear all 

         am working in a reputed form and i have question. what is the shelf life of cold sandwich from production to consumption.

[don sebastian]

Rex,

If I'm not wrong the best practice is 1day shelf life to be in de safe side. 

Don

On Saturday, September 27, 2014, Rex Dasan <rexf...@gmail.com> wrote:

HI dear all 

         am working in a reputed form and i have question. what is the shelf life of cold sandwich from production to consumption.

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[Bobby Krishna]

Dear Don,

Is there a reason why you think 1 day would be safe without any mention of temperature, time, process, ingredient etc?

A sandwich can be unsafe in 4 hours if it's cold and is left without temperature control.

A sandwich can be unsafe in 2 hours if it was prepared with cooked meat that was not cooled rapidly.

So, please define your process first and the conditions before deciding the shelf life. 

A sandwich can be safe for more than a week and can be unsafe in a couple of hours!

Regards

Bobby
Sent from my iPhone

[Rex Dasan]

HI 

  Mr. Bobby we have five steps for Sandwich preparation 

for example Roast chicken sandwich 

1. cooking the meat in oven with more than 74*c   

2. blast chilling below 4*c with in 4 hrs after blast chilling we are keeping the item in side the chiller below 2*c temp 

3.next day preparation (slicing ,chopping and mixing) below 12*c ambient temp below 18*c 

4. filling below 12*c

5. flow warping below 12*c

 After each process we will keep the item in to the chiller. 

for eg. we are cook the item on 27th sat, preparation on 28th  with use by date 30th

This our process.please correct me if any thing is wrong.

[Bobby Krishna]

That's a good process. 

I am not sure the other person who asked the question has any!

Sent from my iPhone

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[don sebastian]

Sir Bobby,

         First of all I'm sorry if, what I said was wrong. It's just that I still like a new born baby in this field, my knowledge is still under construction. 

I said one day shelf life based on what I see in some restaurant. Once the sandwich is made and displayed in the chiller for example it's made and displayed  on 28th morning 7am and they are throwing at 28th night 11.30 and temp of the chiller is always below 4.5 degrees. So the shelf life I said is 1 day. What I said was based on that. Sorry if I was wrong.

And sir Bobby, last night I went to a store that means 28th morning around 4am. I notice 2 type of sandwiches.

1. Chicken sandwich ( chicken, mayonnaise, pepper) production date: 27/09/14

             Expiry date:-        29/09/14

2. Egg sandwich (egg, mayonnaise)

             Production date: 28/09/14

             Expiry date :       29/09/14

Then for both they put the time 12am. Which I was not clear what they mean.

Sir Bobby, why chicken sandwich is 3days and egg sandwich is 2days.

Warm Regards,

Don Sebastian 

[Peter Bracher]

I was very interested when I saw this issue posted in the Group – as I have to admit that after 35 years working in the food industry I’m still not sure about the best way to set the shelf life for a product!

 

I guess in theory we should be checking the local legal requirements, doing  a HACCP assessment to see if shelf life is a CCP and we should do shelf life trials with lab testing to verify the proposed shelf life?

 

But what I’ve seen in practice is that we use official guidance and data from similar products to set the life and then rely on labelling to try and set the holding temperatures.

 

When I was at a major international retailer we ran a project to review our ‘Use by” dates ……  we kept fresh products for 2,3, 4 and 5 days at a range of temperatures and tested each batch in the lab.

 

We also did sensory testing as often it’s the quality and taste that sets the maximum shelf life and not safety considerations.

 

What we found surprised us:

 

·         Sensory/taste issues typically occurred one day before the expiry date

 

·         There were significant mold and bacterial problems just one day after the shelf life if the temperature was only 2’C above spec

 

·         Products that contained a mixture of raw and cooked ingredients – such as chilled pizza – were significantly out of specification for mold and total counts within the shelf life

 

As a result of the trials we changed the shelf life testing process to include tests at the actual temperatures of chillers in the “real world” (very few chillers can hold 4’C in tropical countries), shelf lives were reduced and HACCP reviews were carried out.

 

Peter

 

 

Peter Bracher | Managing Director; Asia-Pacific |Tel : + 662 650 3080 |Fax: + 662 6503084 | Mobile: + 66 807867992| Skype ID : petermbracher | Email: pbra...@nsf.org  

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[Bobby Krishna]

Thanks and appreciate the information Peter.

It shows how important it is to validate the shelf life in the conditions that you subject the food to.

Change of suppliers, decontamination processes, handling etc can have a significant impact on produce and raw animal products. Fish is another great example where the microbiological activity can change completely when the storage temperature goes up from 1C to 4 C!

Sent from my iPhone

On 29 Sep 2014, at 9:46 am, Peter Bracher <pbra...@nsf.org> wrote:

I was very interested when I saw this issue posted in the Group – as I have to admit that after 35 years working in the food industry I’m still not sure about the best way to set the shelf life for a product!

 

I guess in theory we should be checking the local legal requirements, doing  a HACCP assessment to see if shelf life is a CCP and we should do shelf life trials with lab testing to verify the proposed shelf life?

 

But what I’ve seen in practice is that we use official guidance and data from similar products to set the life and then rely on labelling to try and set the holding temperatures.

 

When I was at a major international retailer we ran a project to review our ‘Use by” dates ……  we kept fresh products for 2,3, 4 and 5 days at a range of temperatures and tested each batch in the lab.

 

We also did sensory testing as often it’s the quality and taste that sets the maximum shelf life and not safety considerations.

 

What we found surprised us:

 

·         Sensory/taste issues typically occurred one day before the expiry date

 

·         There were significant mold and bacterial problems just one day after the shelf life if the temperature was only 2’C above spec

 

·         Products that contained a mixture of raw and cooked ingredients – such as chilled pizza – were significantly out of specification for mold and total counts within the shelf life

 

As a result of the trials we changed the shelf life testing process to include tests at the actual temperatures of chillers in the “real world” (very few chillers can hold 4’C in tropical countries), shelf lives were reduced and HACCP reviews were carried out.

 

Peter

 

 

<image003.jpg> Peter Bracher | Managing Director; Asia-Pacific |Tel : + 662 650 3080 |Fax: + 662 6503084 | Mobile: + 66 807867992| Skype ID : petermbracher | Email: pbra...@nsf.org  

[FAMS COCHIN]

Dear All,

A good discussion on shelf life!

As a customer I prefer to buy products with today's production date wherever possible,

And stopped buying fresh meat here, but prefer frozen meat ; and in fact I wait to eat  the fresh meat cooked in our traditional style that I used to get in my home town; few hours after the animal is slaughtered.

As a mother I advise my kids to buy a sandwich "only" with today's production date!

As a food safety officer of a large catering Co(over 30000meals/day), many years ago, I remember our operation manager used to get upset when he sees cooked rice in the chiller or in hot cabinet after the food is despatched,The blanket rule, for most of the products was either cook and serve or a max. of 48 hour shelf life for all in house production. 

Today as an auditor  shocked to see dates are manipulated,the original date was

Prod: Nov 2013/Exp. Nov 2014; The new date is Prod: August 2014/Exp: August 2015!!

As and when an apple is plucked from a tree the quality/safety is starting to change; Microbiological, Nutritional and sensory.

But at the end of the day as one of my friend in retail sector asked why should I waste food if I can save  it?

And the fact is, today, tons of food is wasted just because of a date! 'Expired'!

Best Regards

Vineetha

Vineetha Brown

Director  ( Training & Consultancy)
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