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Meat purveyors lose up to $1 billion annually to discolored beef, according to University of Missouri meat scientists. After about three days on the supermarket shelf, beef products turn an unappetizing grey or brown, rendering them unsaleable.
The discoloration is believed to be caused in part by the heat that’s generated by the fluorescent lights traditionally used in store lighting. In order to test this hypothesis, the Mizzou scientists conducted a study where hamburger patties were exposed to different lighting situations. One batch was completely in the dark, another batch was lit with fluorescent bulbs and a third was lit with LED lights.
Carefully monitoring the results, the scientists discovered that meat displayed or stored under LED lights fared better than the meat lit by fluorescent lights, retaining its desirable red color longer. The increased heat produced by the fluorescent lights turned the ground meat brown more quickly. (Meat kept in the dark retained its red color better than under either light source, but, obviously, that’s not practical for grocery store display.)
Extending the shelf life of beef products by even a single day could have a significant impact on grocery stores’ bottom line, partly because shoppers generally fall into two categories: planners, who shop for the week’s meals on Sunday, and demand shoppers, who shop Thursday to Saturday. That leaves a day in the middle of the week when ground beef can go grey and grocers can lose sales.
The MU research advances previous work by a graduate student at Kansas State University, who found that LEDs extended the shelf life of ground beef and other meat.
Illumitex’s Eclipse LED lights with our patented X5 arrays are perfectly suited for extending the shelf life of beef products. Our LEDs generate half as much heat as fluorescent lighting and our lights’ remote drivers remove that particular heat-generating component from the equation, as well. Beef stored and displayed under Illumitex LED lights will likely see extra shelf life, saving grocery stores big bucks.
Contact us today to learn more.
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