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One of the prerequisites of setting up a bakery business is attaining sound knowledge about the shelf life of foods. Since foods are perishable goods, your focus as an entrepreneur in the food industry should be to extend the shelf life of the foods that you are selling to your consumers. This requires plenty of research into the basics of food science and food preservation.
Food preservatives
As the owner or the person in charge of a bakery outlet, you will be frequently asked questions regarding the use of preservatives in your food. It is thus important for you to know what preservatives are and how to make the best use of them without compromising the hygiene of your baked goods and thereby incurring the wrath of health conscious consumers. The primary reason why preservatives are added to food is because they help maintain the appearance, edibility, flavor, texture and the nutritional value of your food. During the early days of your business operations, you cannot expect a massive influx of customers in your bakery outlet. Instant popularity in the community is something that is very hard to achieve in the bakery business. In other words, your baked goods will not be sold as soon as they are placed in the food display. In certain cases, the baked items may go unsold for hours at a time. Under these circumstances, you need to be able to figure out how preservatives can be used to retain the quality of your baked goods and increase their shelf life.
If you are unable to employ the required preservation techniques, you will end up throwing your spoiled food away which will amount to huge financial losses in the long run.
Types of preservatives
There are basically three types of preservatives that you can use to increase the shelf life of your baked goods that are contained within the bakery display case. The first type of preservatives impedes the growth of potentially dangerous microorganisms. The second type slows down or stops the oxidation reaction of fats, lipids and other components of your bakery selection. Lastly, you have the third type of preservatives which are used to decrease the rate at which fruits ripen. This is something that you will need since a lot of the modern day bakery items contain fruit or fruit jam as a topping.
Regardless of the type of preservatives you select, it imperative for you to ensure that you do not use chemicals or ingredients in food that jeopardize the health of your customers.
Using preservatives in combination with specialty retail lighting
The absence of preservatives is not the only thing which can rapidly decrease the quality of your baked goods. The use of ordinary display case lighting causes photo degradation of food which is something you need to avoid at all costs. You will be surprised to know how much money a bakery business can lose by overlooking the effects of inferior food display case lighting and by not using proper preservatives.
If you really want to extend the shelf life of your food, then never compromise on the quality of the preservatives used in your goods and never use ordinary lamps for your bakery display case lighting. Opt for special merchandising lamps such as Promolux food safe lighting.