4 replies to this topic

[mirrodubai2020]

From the point of food safety is it safe to freeze the fresh meat or fresh chicken which nearly expired or at the Last day of shelf life
If we consider the microbial load as at required in the fresh items with maintaining the required temperature of storage below 3 Celsius and the freezing will be by quick shock freezing at -40 Celsius

[SQFconsultant]

Yes.

[mgourley]

I would say yes, since many meat products have a "Use by or freeze" date on the packaging.
that being said, if you froze the product on it's expiry date, I'd want to use it as soon as it were thawed later.

 

Marshall

[Charles.C]

From the point of food safety is it safe to freeze the fresh meat or fresh chicken which nearly expired or at the Last day of shelf life
If we consider the microbial load as at required in the fresh items with maintaining the required temperature of storage below 3 Celsius and the freezing will be by quick shock freezing at -40 Celsius

 

I assume "safe" means "safe" to consume..

 

I assume food input is solely chicken meat.

 

IMO likelihood to achieve safe food is Yes but with some caveats.

 

Hypothesizing the following process -

 

(raw, chilled, meat >> freeze  >> store >> thaw >> heat >> consume

                                     1               2           3            4              5

Caveats

(a) the meat when initially frozen complies with an appropriate safety related-specification.

(b) The shelf life is validated. This implies that at end of shelf life, the item remains compliant as per (a).

(c) The heat treatment (4) is sufficient to "eliminate" potential vegetative pathogens.

(d) Stages [1-4] do not impart/generate hazards which will remain unremoved prior to (5).

 

Assuming good hygiene, the most  likely consumer risk  IMO is due to initial presence/survival/increase of pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacter combined with  insufficient heating.

[HCFtech]

Yes for home consumption - use within 24 hrs after defrost.

 

For processing as per Charles post but also consider fermentation and curing if doing shelf life trials. I recently did quite a bit of work on HPP for meat and dairy, lots of good information here : https://www.hiperbaric.com/en/meat  we were going to 6000psi for 3 minutes.