Fried snack foods are typically packaged in multilayer structures, although spiral-wound, paperboard cans lined with aluminum foil or a barrier polymer and sealed under vacuum with an LDPE foil end are used for some specialty products which also require mechanical protection.
The mechanism of deterioration changes of snack food that can be arrested by packaging may be summarized as:
*Moisture gain or loss
*Oxidation due to residual oxygen in the sealed apck
*Photolytically-induced oxidation and other reaction from the ultraviolet light component of natural sunlight or/and from artificial lighting used in retail cabinets.
Snack food packaging must unequivocally meet the demands of the product: oxygen and light barrier properties, moisture protection, compatibility with machinery, and the ability to provide a good ‘billboard’ for the product.
Development of recloseable bags has been a major interest of the snack foods industry since the mid 1990s, The benefit from this feature would be protection of remaining product in opened large packages from high humidity before consumption resumes.
To date, reclose features have been commercialized for packaging systems other than the vertical form-fill-seal.
Packaging for snack food
