“Packaging plays a crucial role since its most important functions are preservation and protection of food”
The delivery of safe food from the producer to the consumer is a key priority for industry and authorities. It requires meticulous monitoring at every stage in the supply chain “from farm to fork”. Packaging plays a crucial role since its most important functions are preservation and protection of food.
- The industry needs effective packaging systems to preserve the food safely during distribution and storage while maintaining the food quality, along with increasing demands of the consumer for fresher, minimally processed, more convenient and safer foods.
- This leads to the need for developing innovative and safety modern packaging that have never been used and are produced by new processes. So there is the need to ensure the safety and benefits of such food packaging solutions can bring.
The role of packaging is, in most cases, a rather passive and inert one but during last decades the idea of active and intelligent packaging has got more attention and many commercial products are introduced and used in the food area.
Active food contact materials are intended to extend the shelf life or to maintain or improve the condition of packaged food. They are designed to deliberately incorporate components that would release or absorb substances into or from the packaged food or the environment surrounding the food.
On the other hand, intelligent food contact materials are intended to monitor the condition of packaged food or the environment surrounding the food.
First developments and commercial packages intended to present an actively role in the protection of the product were based on independent devices which were incorporated with the product in a conventional package. This is the case of sachets and other devices. The potential misuse by the consumer of that device, the need to include an extra processing operation in the packaging lines and the evidence of the presence with the product of a foreign object, are driving to the development of packaging structures which include the active agents.
Polymers are appropriate materials for the development of active structures thanks to their mass transport characteristics – permeation, sorption and migration. The active components can be incorporated into the package walls by diverse procedures which include as solutes in polymer solutions or dispersions for coatings, as constituents which are melt blended during plastic extrusion or by functionalization of package surface. From there, the active agent can be released into the food or headspace to make their beneficial action, can remove food or headspace components which are sorbed into the polymer matrix or act by food contact.
Intelligent packaging systems can provide rapid, low cost, package integrated ways to determine the quality of food in consumer packages throughout the logistics chain from producer to consumer. For instance, total volatile basic nitrogen compounds (TVBN) have been recognized as indicators of seafood spoilage. Non-amine volatiles, mainly short chain alcohols and oxidation products of fat are also potential compounds by which fish freshness can be gauged. In the case of other fresh products such as fresh chicken, volatiles produced by Brochothrix thermosphacta or Clostridium. perfringens could be also monitored.
Combination of natural antimicrobial (active) and intelligent functions in a packaging seems to be a really innovative and safe solution to achieve a proper preservation of fresh products and to prolong their short shelf life improving its quality. As the diagram shows, NAFISPACK will develop novel packaging solutions by addressing all packaging aspects within the supply chain.