How long will the baked goods last?
All of our Zingerman’s Bakehouse pastries and coffee cakes are baked with full-flavored ingredients, but without preservatives. The good news is we’ve done the hard work of tasting and testing to ensure that they can be enjoyed for weeks to come.
If enjoying soon, keep them at room temperature.
Each baked good will have an “eat or freeze by” sticker that is about two weeks from when the package ships out. If enjoying the treats within a week or so of delivery, they can be kept at room temperature in the packaging they arrived in or in a plastic bag. Avoid the refrigerator, it can ruin the texture.
If enjoying later, keep them in the freezer.
For longer term storage, all of our baked goods freeze well for up to three months. They can be stored in the freezer in their original packaging or, if they’ve been opened, double wrapped in plastic bags.
After the freezer, it is best to allow frozen pastries and coffee cakes to defrost slowly at room temperature in the packaging. That’s all–though with some pastries like scones, a little warm up in an oven will make them extra delicious.
Bacon 101
What to expect when you are expecting bacon
In warmer months (early April to mid September), we ship bacon with two business day service plus warm weather care. The bacon may arrive warm, and that’s completely normal! Dry ice will evaporate, ice packs may melt, but they will have done their job of preventing the bacon from cooking on its journey.
The rest of the year (late September to the end of March), the shipping method will be flat rate service (1-4 business days).
My bacon arrived warm – is it safe?
If your bacon arrives at room temperature or warm – that’s totally okay! Your bacon can take the heat because it’s cured. Curing keeps meat safe by making it inhospitable to the microbes that would otherwise cause rot. Most commonly, this is done by salting, smoking, and drying. When cured slowly and traditionally, these techniques not only make the meat safe to keep, they also make it extra delicious.
If the packaging is puffy or torn, if the color looks grey or un-bacony, and/or if there are any unusual odors, then that means the bacon might not have survived the trip. Let us know and we’ll make it right!
How to store your bacon
You can store the bacon in the refrigerator or the freezer. Once the bacon is opened, it will be good in the fridge for about a week. Unopened bacon in the vacuum-sealed package will keep for about 3 weeks in the fridge and up to 12 months in the freezer, so seize the opportunity to stock up!