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As consumers embrace diverse formats, shelf stability is now critical in modern food formulation. Developers now incorporate broader requirements to meet evolving consumer demands.
Shoppers expect clean-label, functional, or indulgent products tailored to their specific needs. Keeping up with this constantly evolving set of consumer needs can put considerable pressure on developers, especially when it comes to shelf stability.
While addressing shelf stability in food manufacturing has never been a “one-size fits all” approach, the number of variables now impacting formulations only further complicates a product’s journey from sample to shelf.
Understanding Shelf Stability in Food Systems
When creating shelf-stable foods, there are two primary considerations: ensuring food safety and maintaining product quality throughout its shelf life. As formulations and processes change, shelf stability expectations continue to rise. These demands challenge companies shifting to organic or cleaner-label formulations. Fortunately, at Ever Fresh, all-natural, clean formulated ingredient systems are our specialty, with most of our core items already optimized for such requirements.
New cleaner ingredients can introduce formulation challenges.
Avoiding Shelf Stability Pitfalls in the Sample-to-Shelf Transition
Addressing formulation stability issues as they arise, or even before they do, is critical to our process. Our team closely monitors quality, color, and sensory attributes and their contributing factors.
For example, since most of our items are heat-treated through either pasteurization or cooking, it’s not unusual for either color or flavor degradation to take place. If a product is starch-based, this could also affect its shelf life over time. Formulation and processing changes can affect viscosity, brix, and overall sensory appeal. Sensory issues are not the only factors that affect shelf-stable foods. Water activity, moisture migration, and ingredient selection can all influence shelf life and formulation stability.
Controlling moisture migration
The degree of water activity, for example, is inversely related to the length of a product’s shelf life. `The higher the level of water activity is in a formulation the greater the shelf life is reduced. `However, maintaining low(er) water activity and a low(er) pH will result in the opposite effect, an increased shelf life. Controlling moisture migration is key to overall product stability. It can affect texture, flavor, shelf life, and long-term product quality. The right combination of stabilizers can reduce moisture migration. Starches, gums, pectins, and related systems help improve overall stability.
Not every stabilizer performs the same across formulations. Performance can vary under different processing and storage conditions.Some starches may perform well in a formulation, but struggle to hold up under refrigeration. Marrying such ingredients with gums or pectins could help improve performance of the starch, and in turn stability of the product. Similarly, when we add ingredients during production affects not only their performance in the final product but also the performance of other ingredients. A great example of this is acid.
proper pH
To achieve proper pH and support other key functions, we incorporate acid at the correct stage of processing. Too early and it can burn or destroy the integrity of your starches, compromising stability. These are just a few of the reasons why we believe it’s so important to help developers build awareness of their processing parameters and gain a greater understanding of their formulation systems.
Moving away from traditional ingredients can introduce formulation challenges. This is especially true when ingredients are reduced or removed entirely. These ingredients often interact with a formulation quite differently from their more standard counterparts. Anticipating and troubleshooting these potential “formulation failure points” is why we work through our process in various stages. Each with dedicated evaluation and checks and balances in place between them.
Protecting Shelf Stability: How We Help
We primarily work with core offerings like ice cream bases, fruit feeders, pie fillings, and yogurt preparations. Our processes also help us identify issues across a wide range of product categories.
That’s why we prefer to view “formulation failure points” as opportunities for fine-tuning. When working with something outside our core, we’re even more cautious, adding additional checkpoints to our process.
For starters, we won’t proceed directly from sample to manufacturing a full 100,000 pounds of an order. We take production in steps. Starting with small samples, then moving up to a 50-pound batch, and gradually scaling up to larger quantities. For example, if we notice color fading, structural breakdowns, or flavor loss at any of the steps, we can dig deeper and make the necessary adjustments.
verifying consistency
Along with our product development team, we have a separate quality department that evaluates these samples in parallel. This helps us ensure quality and performance every step of the way. Both teams maintain samples from each batch to use as controls, verifying consistency throughout the entire production life cycle of a product. Our interdepartmental sensory panel evaluates taste, texture, and performance by batch. This assessment continues throughout the product’s approved shelf life.
We use tools like colorimeters to measure characteristics such as color, ensuring every product is as appealing to the eye as it is to the palate. Combining these methods enables us not only to ensure quality but also to identify any deviations outside of tolerance that may require attention.
Food Safety
As previously mentioned, the other primary consideration when dealing with shelf stability in food manufacturing is food safety. This is something we at Ever Fresh take extremely seriously, and it is part of the reason why, when designing our new production facility in Warren, IN, we were sure to include aseptic capabilities.
Though not necessary for all products in our core offerings, the ability to offer aseptic packaging and production for customers, especially those of highly acidic products, can be a game-changer.
Innovations in Shelf Life Technology
Despite the agility and peace of mind our process provides our formulation partners, we’re always looking forward to what’s next. By partnering with experts across the food and beverage industry, we adopt new technologies and strengthen our ingredient systems to deliver clean-label, shelf-stable foods that perform beyond previous expectations.
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