Smartfood R&D is gespecialiseerd in houdbaarheid van levensmiddelen.

Accelerated shelf-life testing

Smartfood R&D specialises in food shelf life. Our close-knit team of top specialists is constantly involved in finding practical solutions for the widest possible variety of shelf-life issues.

We possess an extensive track record in setting up accelerated and real-time microbiological, physico-chemical and sensory shelf-life tests for both food and non-food products.

Our expertise in accelerated shelf-life tests, combined with predictive modelling is well-known within the market and it allows us to quickly establish a reliable estimation of your product’s expected shelf life.

Predictive modelling

Predicting shelf life is a discipline in itself, and in over two decades we have built up an extensive track record in predictive modelling for a wide variety of product groups among clients in the Netherlands and abroad.

Based on an inventory of product properties, the recipe, the packaging, the intended use and the production process, we are able to calculate the shelf life of your product in advance with a reliability of more than 95%.

Shelf-life tests or challenge tests can be implemented to validate the calculations carried out, ultimately resulting in a microbiologically safe product with the desired shelf life.

Integrated approach

It is all interrelated: product safety, preservation, process management, production efficiency, cost management and – last but not least – the taste of the final product. Therefore, smartfood R&D provides a comprehensive set of services to target the integrated approach of microbiological risk management.

This integrated approach allows us to support our clients in mapping product specific microbial food safety and spoilage risks by for example developing adapted recipes, implementing and scaling up these recipes, validating processes involved in microbial food safety and spoilage risk management, establishing product microbial shelf life using several product matrix specific predictive modelling systems, performing accelerated and real time shelf life tests and carrying out challenge tests with pathogenic or spoilage microbes.

From research to smartfood R&D

Smartfood R&D was originally based on the foundations of over 5 years of research into interactions between bacteria and natural characteristics of raw materials, carried out by Frank Cleophas, founder of smartfood R&D.

During his research, Frank made a number of interesting discoveries; he succeeded in extending the shelf life of food using the natural characteristics of raw materials.

Today, smartfood R&D is home to more than a hundred years of R&D expertise, working together in a close-knit team of absolute specialists in their field.

Over the past 25 years smartfood R&D has developed into the independent specialist in the shelf life of food and non-food products.

"Unsolvable problems are made up of solvable partial problems."

- Frank Cleophas, smartfood R&D founder and CEO.