With consumers shifting toward clean-label products, consumers also want fewer ingredients on the label. 

The three major functional ingredients areas — salt, sodium nitrate and lactates such as sodium lactates and sodium diacetate — have the biggest impact on food safety, shelf life and product quality. 

Driven by consumer preference for natural or clean-label products, shelf-life-extending ingredients that are growing continue to be natural or clean-label ingredients.

When looking at shelf-life extending ingredients used for meat processing, many ingredients provide multiple functions.