While looking for your favourite food items in a supermarket, did it
ever strike how does it reach you so fresh or how similar food items
which used to have a very few days of expiry date a couple of decades
back now have expiry date running in years. Modern food packaging
innovations have made it possible to keep your food fresh for a much
longer time, without changing the taste or aroma. This article is about
some of such modern innovations and the impact they had on our food
packaging industry.
Changing lifestyles drive growth in modern food packaging industry. Type
of food packaging and packaging boxes design has become as integral to
food item itself. This trend is most noticeable in western countries
lead by USA Europe and Japan but China, India and other developing
countries are fast catching up. Demand in other countries is nothing
beyond the most basic food packaging. Here are some of the modern in
food packaging:
1) Flavour and odour absorbers like films and sachets have been
introduced to reduce the transfer of aroma or flavour between
components. This helps keeping food items fresh and natural for a long
times.
2) Digital technology has been introduced to look into the freshness of
food items. Ripeness indicators have been designed recently to monitor
and communicate information about food quality. These smart devices can
be incorporated on the food item itself.
3) Various industries have introduced specific technologies suiting
their special food type. Drip absorbing pads have been introduced for
moisture control and oxygen removal systems have been used to keep egg
fresh for a longer period of time in poultry industry.
Sustainability of packaging boxes material has been a topic of debate in
recent times and like all other debates about environment, majority
believes that its time for packaging industry to go green too. Various
corporations and environmental groups are working together to reduce the
effect of non-biological packaging material on our ecosystem.
Sustainable packaging is the new buzzword in food packaging industry.
All new innovations in food packaging have some element of "��green"��
in it. Few criteria"��s have been defined for a packaging material to be
called sustainable:
1) It has to be healthy safe and beneficial for communities and
individuals throughout its lifecycle.
2) It meets market criteria for performance and cost
3) It is sourced, manufactured, transported and recycled using renewable
energy.
4) It maximizes the use of renewable or recycled source materials.
5) It is manufactured using clean production technologies and best
practices.
6) It is made from materials healthy in all probable end-of-life
scenarios.
7) It is designed to optimize materials and energy
8) It is recovered effectively and used in biological and/or industrial
cradle to cradle cycles(SPC, 2007)
Source: Institute of Food Technologies
All the modern day advancements are coming in nanotechnology and food
packaging industry is not very different. It is said that nano
technology will produce the most remarkable new food packaging concepts.
Work has already begun in the field of active and intelligent
packaging, pathogen detection and creating good barriers between various
food materials.