Research shows food safety gaps in home-delivery meal kits
Failure of cold-chain results in ready-to-cook meal kits with ‘microbial loads off the charts’
Speaking on the final day of the 2017 Food Safety Summit in a session on “Home Delivery,” the professor of human ecology presented results of a Rutgers-Tennessee State University study that looked into the integrity of home-delivered dinners. Professor Bill Hallman said researchers placed orders for delivery of 169 meal kits, including entrees of 271 meat items, 235 seafood items, 133 game items, and 39 poultry items. What the researchers found raised concerns about pathogens, packaging, labeling and cold-chain integrity.
The study also involved 1,002 interviews with consumers, and review of 427 domestic food delivery vendor websites.
