Quality and inspection
Shelf life.
Shelf life is established by testing a specific product in a specific pack under specific storage. Change the pack, the storage or the formulation and the figure no longer applies, which is where imported products go wrong.
How it is established.
Real-time studies: store the product as it will be stored and test it at intervals until it fails. Reliable and slow.
Accelerated studies: store it warmer to speed up degradation and extrapolate. Faster, approximate, and it does not model every failure mode.
Challenge testing: deliberately introduce organisms to see whether the product supports growth. Used where microbiological safety rather than quality sets the limit.
Whichever was used, the study belongs to a product in a pack. It is not a property of the recipe.
Why a supplier's figure may not apply.
Different packaging. A figure validated on a nitrogen-flushed barrier pack means nothing for the same product in a cheaper film.
Different storage. Studies assume a temperature. A warehouse that runs warm shortens everything, and so does a container crossing the tropics.
The voyage counts. Six weeks at sea is six weeks of the shelf life, and buyers routinely forget that the clock started at production.
Different market rules. What has to be printed, and whether it is a use-by or a best-before, is set where you sell.
What to ask for.
The study itself rather than the number: which product, which pack, which storage conditions, which method.
The production date on every consignment, and a minimum remaining shelf life on arrival written into the contract.
Your own confirmatory testing if the product is new to you, because the arrival condition is what your customer will experience.
Questions buyers ask.
Can I extend a shelf life?
Only with evidence, which means a study on your actual product in your actual pack. Printing a longer date because the product still seems fine is not a defensible position.
What minimum remaining shelf life should I demand?
Enough for your distribution chain plus a margin, agreed as a contract term rather than assumed. Retailers frequently impose their own minimum on you, so work backwards from that.
Does the sea voyage count?
Yes, entirely. The clock starts at production, so a long routing consumes shelf life before the goods reach your warehouse. This is a real argument for faster routings on short-life products.
Read next.
Specifying the packaging
Left to the factory, packaging is chosen on cost. What to specify instead, and why.
Shipping chilled and frozen goods
A reefer is a machine with a recorder in it. What the trace proves, where the chain breaks, and who carries the risk.
Labelling for your market
Printed in Indonesia and judged in your country. What has to appear, and who carries the obligation.
What to test, and where
Which properties need a laboratory rather than an inspector, and whether to test at origin or at destination.
Sourcing from Indonesia?
Tell us the product, the quantity and the destination. We come back with what it involves before anyone talks about money.