In order to comply with regulatory and retailer requirements, a wide range of products, including foods and beverages, pet food and animal feed, supplements and nutraceuticals, personal care products and more, must undergo shelf life testing to determine expiration dates, best-by dates and sell-by dates.
Element’s scientists have years of experience in determining shelf life for a variety of product types along with a full range of capabilities to assess product stability, including ambient, refrigerated, frozen, freeze-dried (gas finished or oxygen packed), vacuum-packed (sous vide), modified atmosphere packaging and accelerated shelf-life testing to ensure product quality and safety. Element’s shelf-life study services provide the detailed and reliable data required to help you make certain of your product’s stability over its entire shelf life.
Element offers bespoke shelf-life study programs to meet the unique characteristics of your product. We also have extensive experience with ISO, CTFA, Colipa, and FDA protocols, and consider the following critical factors when setting up each distinctive testing protocol:
- Microbiological risk parameters
- Water activity and pH
- Rancidity
- Label claims
- Organoleptic evaluation
Our large storage capacity can accommodate a multitude of products under several conditions, including frozen, refrigerated, ambient, intermediate, tropical, temperature cycling and accelerated shelf-life studies.
The Element advantage
In addition to shelf-life studies on market-ready products, including food and dietary supplements, Element also offers microbial challenge studies to better detail microbial risk or spoilage potential for new products going to the market.
To learn about our shelf life testing services, or to speak with one of our experts, contact us today.
More from Element
Food Allergen Testing
Element offers industry standard and specialized food allergen testing to confirm the presence or absence of allergens using the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) method.
Food Quality and Safety
Element's food safety testing will help ensure that your food product is safe, quality, and fit for the public.
Nutrition Label Testing
Element’s food nutrition testing laboratories offer nutrition label testing to create and verify nutrition facts panels according to FDA and USDA requirements.
Food Microbiology
Element provides food microbiology services for common foodborne pathogens, food spoilage organisms, and mycotoxins to HACCP, SQF, and R&D programs.