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”?

Question

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

Answer 1

There is a period of time between when the chicken is slaughtered and processed and it goes bad. It’s not a huge window (7-8 days or so) and perhaps half of that is between the time it’s processed, sent to distribution warehouses, and ends up on the grocery store cooler. Then it sells through in a couple days, and can last a few more in your fridge before it goes bad. Fresh meats are blast cooled to get them to low temperatures as quickly as possible after processing and kept at lower temps in transport and on grocery coolers than typical home fridge, which extends the life a little.