Why can chicken be just fine going through packaging, delivery, and sitting on the shelves but after buying it from the store you have to use it in a few days before it goes “bad”?
In: Biology
Any non-frozen raw chicken I buy comes with a best-before date… I just reference that regardless of how many days it’s been in my fridge vs the store’s. Yes, the period of transportation from store to home can make a difference. But also the chicken itself has heat capacity. It doesn’t instantly go from cold to room temperature just because you took it out of the fridge.
But agreed with others here, good practice to minimize the time it spends out of refrigeration. Pick it up last in the store. If you are buying any frozen food at the same time, bag the chicken together with the frozen food. When you get home it’s your first priority into the fridge.
Conversely, if I’m walking home from the grocery store when it’s “fridge temperature” outside or cooler, (I use a folding cart), I’ll put the raw meat package in a part of the cart where it’s in contact with the cold air, since that will keep it colder than being in contact with anything warmer in the cart.
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