Use-by dates on red meat in the UK should be extended, say industry experts who are lobbying the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to endorse scrapping the current 10-day cap and extending it to 21 days or more. According to 2008 guidance from the FSA, clarified in 2017, the shelf life of either vacuum- or gas-packaged fresh meat kept at 3-8C should be limited to 10 days unless suitable grounds for a longer shelf life can be identified, such as high salt content or low pH. Industry experts are contesting the guidelines, calling for a return to the previous situation in which manufacturers and retailers determined use-by dates, a shift that could see the shelf life of packaged and chilled red meat extended to three weeks or more. You can go beyond that”, he said, adding 21 days is simply a common timeframe used in marketing beef. The report also revealed results from experiments in which samples of meat were exposed to such bacteria and kept at 8C.

Source: The Guardian August 09, 2020 16:03 UTC