Inferior Lighting Can Damage Your Baked Perishables

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The fact that inferior display case lighting can affect food, lead to premature discoloration, and lower the shelf life of baked goods is something that is known to some people are who involved in the retail industry. Despite that, few retailers have taken appropriate measures to ensure that food display lighting does not hamper the quality of their food and dent the reputation of their business.

The problem with inferior food display lighting

The idea that lighting can have adverse effects on the safety of perishable goods such as baked items is not widespread knowledge as of yet. This is the reason why retailers do not take food display lighting very seriously. Many of them simply ignore the problem due to the lack of adequate information on the subject.

For example, the owner of any bakery outlet is supposed to be very selective about the display lighting that gets fitted into the bakery display case. However, we rarely see owners investing their money on high quality food safe lighting.

Most of them settle for ordinary lights and risk facing consequences such as photodegradation of food, accelerated growth of pathogens and absorption of excessive heat, which leads to changes in the chemical composition of the baked goods.

Drawing the shopper’s attention in the wrong way

In the retail food industry, drawing the customer’s attention is an integral part of keeping your business alive in an intensely competitive atmosphere. If the customers who walk into a bakery shop are not satisfied with the appearance of the foods placed in the display case, then chances are that they will walk away without taking their wallets out. To avoid this rejection, entrepreneurs go to great lengths to create wonderful displays of baked goods that are placed under spot and accent lights with extra intensity.

The more intense the light is, the higher the chances are of photo degradation of food taking place. In other words, bright lights lead to big problems for retail food outlets. These lights are literally causing the food to go bad. The business owners are succeeding in drawing the customers into the shop. However, in doing so, they are compromising the safety of their food, which should be their primary concern.

Plenty of research but no implementation

The connection between lighting and photodegradation of food or food toxicity is something that has piqued the interest of research facilities in numerous universities across the world. However, the information that is being discovered inside the research labs is yet to trickle down to the grassroots level retailers who are completely unaware of the fact that their flashy display lights are ruining the quality of their food.

According to one report, most in-store lighting is inferior from a food safety and shelf life perspective. This means that most bakery outlets are not only selling unsafe foods, but they are also reducing their profits by unknowingly reducing the shelf life of their baked goods.

The solution: food safe lighting

If you are concerned about preserving the quality of your baked goods, we recommend food safe lighting such as that developed by Promolux. This specialty lighting designed specifically with food retailers in mind will extend the shelf life of your baked products, while making them look more attractive to consumers.