Most food processing businesses usually struggle to keep their food products contamination free. Given that processed foods are a delicate commodity that would easily put you into trouble with the law if they became unsafe for human consumption, you will want to ensure you keep up with the best trends in food preservation. You do not have to go through the rigorous processes if you are on a tight budget. Instead, you can opt to incorporate simple techniques along the food chain from sourcing raw food, transporting it, processing, packaging, and finally distributing it to reach your consumers. 

We will discuss three simple measures you can take to ensure your food products remain uncontaminated and fully safe for human consumption throughout the recommended shelf life period. 

Use Airtight and Watertight Packaging

Food products have a higher risk of going bad if you do not safely store them in suitable packaging or containers. You need to ensure the packaging material you use is both airtight and watertight if your food products are to remain uncontaminated. If it is allowed in your region, you should first go for plastic containers or bags before packing products in larger packages like cartons. This will help you keep moisture and air off your food products until the moment the consumer opens the package ready for immediate use. 

If plastics are a thing of the past in your area, you should consider other packaging options like glass and cans. Aluminum cans and glass bottles are good for packaging both dry and wet food products such as dried fruits and beverages. To further ensure the products remain safe, you can add a tamper-proof security seal over the top of the container so that consumers would know that the product has not been compromised before it finally lands in their hands. 

Reduce Transportation Distance

A lot of things can go wrong along the sourcing and supply chain if you are not careful enough. Your raw or processed food products could easily get contaminated the longer you have to transport them from the suppliers to your operating base and from here to the location of the final consumer. 

You should go for wholesale organic bulk food suppliers who are within your local area of operation to help reduce the distance over which food materials for processing have to be transported. While you may not be able to actually bridge the gap between your premises and the final consumer if you are serving a larger area, you can reduce the risk of in-transit contamination by using modern transportation technology like refrigerated delivery trucks. 

Thebalancesmb.com acknowledges that businesses and consumers should be encouraged to reduce the distance food travels before it is eaten.

“Most fresh fruits and vegetables travel an average of 1500 miles before reaching their final destination. Most people’s food is better traveled than they are.” 

As they observe, there are several benefits to reducing food travel distance. “The food tastes better and is healthier.” 

Furthermore, this is a suitable marketing tactic to leverage so you can woo more consumers to your business.

Source Only Fully Grown Farm Produce

It gets riskier for you as a food business if you source your food items from producers when it is yet to grow fully. Incomplete maturation in food means that it is of lower quality and will result in lower quality processed products. If you are to buy food items that have not reached the recommended maturity levels, you risk contaminating them and the final product along the food chain. 

Risks such as the accumulation of mold and aflatoxin in your products like cocoa butter, chocolate, nuts, and dried fruits are likely to occur if the farm produce was harvested unripe. These contaminants may also come up if you buy your raw items from a food broker who stores their products badly by exposing them to moisture at the store. 

If you want to eliminate the risks of contaminating your food products, broker, we are an experienced food industry consultant firm and we can help you find the best wholesale organic bulk food suppliers and food product packaging solutions. Be sure to contact us to book a free consultation.