Hello,
Regarding extending shelf life on frozen fruits, is it considered food fraud to extend frozen fruit shelf life if quality and micro testing is completed before doing so? I know frozen fruits technically have no used by date or expiration date, they have a best by date. Anyone have thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Nicole
Hi Nicole,
The thing with food fraud questions is that, outside of the obvious adulteration/substitution stuff, many of them will be context-dependent.
In this case, is there an attempt at misrepresenting the product or one (or more) of its attributes for commercial gain?
If it is supplied under a contract/specification that says the fruit must be from a particular season's crop, or under a certain age, without informing the customer or indeed actively trying to obfuscate the truth then yes this probably is fraudulent - changing the dates to allow it to be sold is making money from a sale that potentially wouldn't occur if the real information had been presented.
However, approaching the sale more openly would not be fraudulent - with date problems on product types that are "best before" dated, I always advocate simply being open and honest with the customer. If it genuinely is suitable for extended shelf life and it can be legitimately justified then it should not be an issue (excepting certain retail co-packers where the ultimate customer sets strange minimum life requirements whilst publicly crowing about their commitment to reducing food waste
)