Food products in museum collections

I am trying to find current guidelines used by other institutions
for the storage of foodstuffs in museum collections. This is not a
food or packaging museum so we do not have separate facilities for
refrigeration of perishables. I am mostly interested in the
guidelines that other museums may have developed for the
retention/discarding of the perishable products within the
containers they retain as artifacts.

For example: an aluminum soda can printed with a limited edition
design and very old soda under pressure inside. My thought is to
gingerly empty the contents from the bottom with essentially a
pinhole, and preserve the empty can as intact as possible.

I would be grateful to hear if anyone has codified these procedures
in their collections policy.

Jackie Hoffman Chin
Museum Tech.
NLWJCL


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:63
                   Distributed: Friday, May 30, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-21-63-009
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