Meeting Food Safety Requirements with Confections

[1261]

Hi everyone!

 

Long time reader, new poster 🙂

 

My wife and I own a confectionery business in Florida and are venturing into various new product lines. Bonbons being specifically what this particular post is about.

 

I'm familiar with the concepts of Water Activity. An aW meter is currently out of budget, but I know there's recipes around that show aW values.

 

But here's my question: According to Florida food safety regulations, we are supposed to store things with milk ingredients at or below 41F, and discard them after 7 days.

 

But I know that most people talk about ganache shelf life in terms of 3 weeks to 3-6 months, and Chocolatier display cases don't seem to be kept at 41F.

 

How do the Chocolatier shop owners deal with this in terms of food inspections and legalities? Am I supposed to apply for a variance and submit a HACCP plan? Seems overkill for some ganache.

 

And what if I don't have aW values and go with a different formulation for a filling? Do I default to the 41F/7-Day rules until I can test for aW?

 

Shelf life and food safety is my biggest confusion as we venture into this side of the business and there doesn't really seem to be any resource anywhere that addresses it in terms of dealing with government agencies, but it's obviously done because Chocolatiers exist everywhere 🙂

 

Thanks!!

[pastrygirl]

3 hours ago, 1261 said:

But here's my question: According to Florida food safety regulations, we are supposed to store things with milk ingredients at or below 41F, and discard them after 7 days.

 

Welcome!

 

But that's ridiculous, by that rule cheese would not exist.  No restaurant or bakery is throwing away all their unused butter at the end of the week. 

 

What types of products are you currently making, and what agency are you licensed/inspected by?

 

aW values will help you determine how to handle your product but I'd be surprised if anyone asked for them. 

[Kerry Beal]

Yeah - just because something has cream in it doesn’t make it unsafe at room temperature - it’s all about aW. 
 

You, of course, need to store your ingredients appropriately. But you don’t need to throw away your dairy ingredients after 7 days!

 

I purchased an aW meter from AliExpress and tested it against my pAWkit - worked just fine.

 

Can you copy here the regulation that says that?

Edited April 3, 2023 by Kerry Beal (log)

[1261]

It's really hard to find these rules or clarification on them. We are licensed by FDACS, Florida Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Even figuring out if we were an FDACS or DBPR business was a challenge! There is some crossover between agencies, but generally DBPR deals with restaurants, food trucks, and hazard risk foods, whereas FDACS deals with prepackaged, bakeries, coffee shops, convenience stores, etc. It's very convoluted and even our inspector commented that half the time they need to sit down and really think about which agency governs certain businesses.

 

Anyway, I digress...

 

I can't find specifically anything relating to "confections" containing dairy. The closest I can find is this:

 

https://www.fdacs.gov/content/download/72568/file/FOOD-STORED-WITHOUT-TEMPERATURE-CONTROL.pdf

 

But I recall from my ServSafe Food Managers course that "prepared foods containing dairy" must be stored at <41 and discarded within 7 days.

 

Dairy is considered a TCS Food, which is why home based food businesses operating under Cottage Food Law aren't permitted to sell goods with buttercream icing and cream fillings, for example.

 

But nowhere in any text I read does it address confections or ganaches. I see PH and aW referenced everywhere, but no specifics on how to use that data to satisfy inspection requirements. The FDACS link above even says I need to send it out to a lab and have them confirm in writing that it's ok. That's ridiculous, I know nobody is doing that for every recipe, so that has to be pertaining to foods more hazardous than a bonbon.

 

Webstaurantstore has a list of TCS Food storage times that they presumably got from the FDA. Using your cheese example, they list Soft Cheese such as Brie as a "discard after 7 days of opening," and hard cheeses as  3-4 weeks:

 

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/29/following-food-safety-temperatures.html

 

Our confections business was previously operating under Cottage Food as a home based business and did a bunch of candy coated and baked items that, by law, didn't require any temperature consideration, including chocolate.

 

We are outfitting our new store now and have a world of opportunity to make temperature sensitive goods, ganaches, filled chocolates, etc, but I want to make sure that we don't get anyone sick and don't get dinged by future inspections.

 

There's not many Chocolatiers around our part of town (actually, none that I can think of) so our inspector wasn't tremendously helpful in answering hypotheticals and seemed to imply that they needed to be kept at <41F, but I'm certain I saw the chocolate display case at a Chocolatier across town set to 59F.

 

Probably a call into their head office will be necessary to get any real clarification - but I was hoping someone that's been through this process on this forum might be like "oh yeah that rule applies to X and you need to do X" lol.

 

@pastrygirl - would you mind sending me a private message with info on the AliExpress aW meter you got? There's a number of them available that I've looked at before but I'm always uncertain of which one to bet on vs which one will just waste my money lol. I won't hold you responsible if I end up with a dud, don't worry 😉

[1261]

Sorry, got my people mixed up a bit in my response, I'm so tired lol.

 

Meant to direct the aW Meter from Ali to Kerry. But as a new member I can't edit my post until it's approve so I'll just post this instead 🙂

[gfweb]

I suspect that the key is the definition of "prepared foods".

[pastrygirl]

2 hours ago, 1261 said:

But nowhere in any text I read does it address confections or ganaches. I see PH and aW referenced everywhere, but no specifics on how to use that data to satisfy inspection requirements. The FDACS link above even says I need to send it out to a lab and have them confirm in writing that it's ok. That's ridiculous, I know nobody is doing that for every recipe, so that has to be pertaining to foods more hazardous than a bonbon.

 

 

It's frustrating.  We're in a niche that the inspectors don't understand any more than we do.  I recently had my WA dept of Ag inspection, I wasn't making ganache that day and she didn't ask about it.  Later I emailed to ask if they had info on aW, response was 'I googled and found this' - yeah, thanks, I have google too 😆 

 

I think you need to look at bonbons as another shelf stable product, which you intend them to be.  Then aW is a quality issue first.  You don't want moldy bonbons for your own sake.  Inspectors seem more concerned about cross-contamination of allergens and general cleanliness. 

 

 

[TdeV]

Hello @1261, I'm not a chocolatier but wanted to welcome you to eG.

[1261]

1 hour ago, gfweb said:

I suspect that the key is the definition of "prepared foods".

 

I suspect you're right, I had the same thought. Everything is geared towards restaurant business it seems.

 

1 hour ago, pastrygirl said:

 

 

It's frustrating.  We're in a niche that the inspectors don't understand any more than we do.  I recently had my WA dept of Ag inspection, I wasn't making ganache that day and she didn't ask about it.  Later I emailed to ask if they had info on aW, response was 'I googled and found this' - yeah, thanks, I have google too 😆 

 

I think you need to look at bonbons as another shelf stable product, which you intend them to be.  Then aW is a quality issue first.  You don't want moldy bonbons for your own sake.  Inspectors seem more concerned about cross-contamination of allergens and general cleanliness. 

 

 

 

There's so many FDA rules and I don't think anyone really knows them LOL. Our inspector is at least super chill. I can't imagine he'd give us trouble for anything we are doing according to industry norms.

 

I think that's a good way to look at it - shelf stable and do our best to keep it from being sour or spoiled. Honestly if we had bonbons in the display cabinet I doubt we'd even be questioned on what ingredients were in them lol.

 

10 minutes ago, TdeV said:

Hello @1261, I'm not a chocolatier but wanted to welcome you to eG.

 

I appreciate the warm welcome! 🙂

[Jim D.]

3 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

 

 

It's frustrating.  We're in a niche that the inspectors don't understand any more than we do.  I recently had my WA dept of Ag inspection, I wasn't making ganache that day and she didn't ask about it.  Later I emailed to ask if they had info on aW, response was 'I googled and found this' - yeah, thanks, I have google too 😆 

 

 

 

This is exactly the experience I have had with inspection.  We fall through the cracks--and that can be a good thing.  I tell customers (on an insert and on my website) to keep the chocolates below 68F and state that shelf life is approximately two weeks--unless they get the chocolates (from me) sealed in plastic, in which case they can refrigerate or even freeze them for a very long shelf life.  A shop that sells them also keeps some in a case under refrigeration and the rest in a freezer.  As discussed on this forum many times, there isn't much you can do once the customer takes the chocolates from your hands.  Over the years I find myself (and I think pastrygirl does the same) making more caramels and giandujas, which have a long shelf life.  Ganache and pâte de fruit can mold--that's just a fact.  If making a fruit-based filling that has some acid, I have recently begun adding a little sorbic acid, which deters mold.

 

I also have found that inspectors are most concerned with ingredient lists, especially their beloved list of allergens (the supervisor said to me, "Yes, I know pinenuts aren't nuts, but you have to list them").  They also care about such things as being able to trace the source of your ingredients (I take photos of the pertinent labels).  And each time mine comes, there is a different emphasis.  A friend gave up her license when the inspector told her she had to cover her fluorescent lights completely with plastic "in case any of them breaks."

[Becky R]

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