Consumer habits and their impact on the food safety of cooked chilled foods: results of a survey in Belgium

Abstract

The consumer exposure to pathogenic microorganisms due to consumption of cooked chilled foods is influenced by the industrial production process and consumer behaviour. A consumer survey was organised to assess the consumption frequency, storage time, reheating practices and perception of and respect for the product’s ‘use by’ date. Of the 874 respondents, over three quarters (77.5%, n=677) had consumed at least one REPFED over the last year. Consumption frequency was the highest between the ages of 18 and 30. Nine out of ten consumers were able to give an acceptable estimate of the shelf life of cooked chilled foods (e.g. less than four weeks). By contrast, only half of the consumers (53.3%) fully respected the ‘use by’ date as indicated on the packaging, the remaining consumers consider a margin of 3 days or more to be acceptable. In addition only half of the consumers fully complied with the reheating instructions on the label. To determine the distribution of the time a cooked chilled food spends in a consumer fridge, the consumers were asked how frequently they bought these products and how they stored them. This information was used to construct a Time to Consumption (TTC) distribution. This TTC demonstrated that approx. 20% of the products was consumed on the day of purchase; about half (52.9%) were consumed within two days of purchase, 75.5% within four days and over 90% during the first week. Furthermore, the data shows that frequent consumers are likely to store the products for shorter times. These short storage times are likely to reduce the exposure to psychrotrophic microorganisms present in cooked chilled foods