Ensuring Food Safety: The Protective Role of Packaging

Food packaging plays a crucial role in safeguarding products from spoilage and deterioration caused by various physical factors. These include shock, vibration, compression, and temperature changes that can occur throughout the product’s lifecycle. During storage, distribution, and consumer handling, food products are often subjected to harsh conditions such as vibration in vehicles, compressive loads during warehouse stacking, and sudden jolts during handling. These conditions can lead to physical damage if the packaging is inadequate.

Compression during storage and transport is a common cause of physical damage. For instance, improperly stacked packages can become crushed under the weight of other items, leading to compromised product quality. Frozen products, in particular, require special handling to prevent damage. The integrity of packaging for frozen goods must be maintained to ensure that the product remains in optimal condition from the moment it is packaged until it reaches the consumer.

The primary function of food packaging is to serve as a protective barrier against mechanical damage during supply and distribution. Physical barriers, such as cartons and pouches, resist impacts, abrasion, and crushing, making them ideal for shipping containers. These barriers are especially important for delicate foods that are prone to damage.

The packaging not only provides physical protection but also helps in maintaining the product’s quality by offering barriers against moisture and oxygen transfer. For example, an outer carton can protect fragile items like breakfast cereals and biscuits from crushing while also preventing potential tampering. Additionally, a sealed inner pouch or liner within the carton offers an added layer of protection against environmental factors that could otherwise spoil the food.

In conclusion, the packaging of food is essential for protecting it from various forms of physical damage during its lifecycle. Proper packaging ensures that the food reaches the consumer in the best possible condition, maintaining both its quality and safety.
Ensuring Food Safety: The Protective Role of Packaging

Packaging can minimize product losses

Food ‘loss’ occurs during agricultural production, post-harvest handling or processing, whereas food ‘waste’ occurs at the end of the food chain (during distribution, retail sale and final consumption).

Packaging is an important factor in reducing losses, as well as extending the shelf life of products. For example, proper packing is essential to maintain the freshness of leafy vegetable. Packaging should be designed to prevent premature deterioration in product quality, in addition to serving as a handling unit.

Inappropriate packaging damages produces; grain spillage from sacks; attack by pests. Poor quality packaging materials cannot adequately protect the products from damages and can even accelerate spoilage of products. Unfortunately, low-quality packaging materials are widely used in many parts of the world due to their low cost.

The main functions of packaging are to contain, to protect, to facilitate handling, and to communicate information. The package should minimize product losses (waste) throughout the food handling and distribution chain. It is to protect its content.

Food losses and waste -related features of the communication function consist mostly of product and packaging information and instructions, as in how to properly store, open, and dispose of the package. Additionally, packaging can contain instructions on how to prolong the shelf life of the packaged food by encouraging consumers to freeze leftovers.
Packaging can minimize product losses

Packaging: Preserve and protect the product

Packaging shall mean all products, made of any material whatsoever, to be used for the containment, protection, transfer, issuance and presentation of goods, from raw materials to finished goods, and from the producer to the user or consumer.

Thereby, the value of the package is uniquely determined by the consumer, depending on the context of use and can, for example, include the preserving of fresh food, supporting the handling and protection of food during purchase, the storage and use process, or providing information regarding ingredients, recipes, and food safety.

Packaging is necessary to contain, support or preserve that product over its entire design life and all elements are intended to be used, consumed or disposed of together.

Packaging functions include physical and chemical protection and preserving of the food content, package sizing, information on food security, and easy to empty functions, for example. In addition, there have been significant advances in technology to extend the shelf life of products.

Food packaging can retard product deterioration, retain the beneficial effects of processing, extend shelf-life, and maintain or increase the quality and safety of food. In doing so, packaging provides protection from 3 major classes of external influences: chemical, biological, and physical.

Lamination is common process in food manufacturing factories, as aluminum enhances permeable materials and therefore the products are soundly preserved in aseptic package. Aluminum foil is commonly combined with paper and cardboard materials to extend shelf life of products by providing sufficient barrier.

It also includes functions to communicate, promote and transact products. Packaging gives a good look and glamourizes the packets for marketing, besides making it convenient for the user. The packets contain labels, which give specific information about the contents, dates of manufacture and expiry, nutrient values, details of manufacturer, etc.
Packaging: Preserve and protect the product

Packaging material for dairy products

Great packaging begins with the right material - one that can deliver performance, quality and reliability for the product it houses.

For highly perishable commodities like milk and its products, packaging is very essential for safe delivery of the product to the consumer without altering its characteristics and nutritive value. Milk and milk products spoil rapidly at temperatures above refrigeration and in the presence of oxygen and other contaminating agents present in the atmosphere.

Packaging of dairy products develops continuously along with advances in material technologies, which are in turn a response to demands of consumers. Packaging is the vital link in the entire chain of production, storage, transportation, distribution and marketing. Functional packaging of dairy products leads not only to resource raising and their optimal utilization, but also protects the contents against deteriorative changes and associated hazards.

Milk is susceptible to oxidation of fat (phospholipids in milk) which produces a waxy odour. This deteriorative change is enhanced by heat, acid and metallic ions. Forms of active packaging relevant to dairy foods include oxygen scavenging, carbon dioxide absorbers, moisture and/or flavour/odour taints absorbers; releasing compounds (carbon dioxide, ethanol, antioxidants and/or other preservatives); maintaining temperature control and/or compensating temperature changes and antimicrobial packaging.

Packaging material for dairy products

Antimicrobial packaging

The antimicrobial polymeric materials were first introduced to protect biomedical devices from microbial contamination in Japan.

Antimicrobial packaging presents significant potential to be implemented in food technology to reduce microbial growth in food system and to extend product shelf life.

Antimicrobial packaging system is designed to be implemented in food technology to control the growth of microorganisms by extending the microbial lag phase and by reducing the growth rate, thereby extending the shelf life of perishable products and enhance the safety of package products.

The use of preservation methods such as thermal processes or modified atmospheres combining with antimicrobial packaging could result in synergistic actions that would increase safety using low amounts of antimicrobials.

Antimicrobial packaging with biocidal polymers is use to protect contents from bacterial contamination, i.e. when a phosphonium compound is embedded in a plastic both microorganism growth on the plastic as well as deposits of iron carbonate or iron, lead and zinc scale deposits are avoided.
Antimicrobial packaging

Edible film and coating

Edible films and coatings (such as wax on various fruits) are thin layers of edible materials applied on food products that play an important role on their conservation, distribution and marketing.

In most cases, the terms film and coating are used interchangeably to indicate that they surface of food is covered by relatively thin layer of material of certain composition.

They have been used for centuries to protect the product from mechanical damage, physical, chemical and microbiological activities. Edible film and coatings offer potential to extend the shelf life and improve the quality of virtually any food system.

These practices were accepted long before their associated chemistries were understood and are still carried out in the present day.

Edible film and coatings can control moisture, oxygen, carbon dioxide, flavor and aroma transfer between food components and the atmosphere surrounding the food.
Edible film and coating

Epoxy in food packaging

Epoxy resins are characterized by the presence of at least two epoxy (or oxirane) groups within their molecular structure.

The group is composed of a planar, three-membered ring comprising two carbon atoms and one oxygen atom.

Epoxy resins containing Bisphenol-A or BPA are used as the inside coating of almost all food and beverage cans. The function of epoxy resins are to provide a protective lining on the interior surface of food and beverage cans to prevent the cans’ contents from contacting and reacting with the metal walls, ensuring sterility.

Many types of internal enamel coatings are available for food containers including epoxy-phenolic, epoxy-amino, epoxy-acrylate, epoxy-anhydrite, vinyl organosol, thermoset polyester, thermoset polymer coated, phenolic, and oleoresinous.

The original can coatings were based on oleoresinous products that include all those materials made by fusing material gums and rosins and blending them with drying oils such as linseed or tung (Chinese wood oil).

Epoxy-phenolic are the commonly used lacquer. They are epoxy resins based on epichlorohydrin and bisphenol.

They are combined with phenolic resins, which re produced by the reaction of phenol with formaldehyde.

This combination gives a gold lacquer with good flexibility, adhesion and chemical resistance.
Epoxy in food packaging

Improving the safety of food using active packaging

For a long time packaging has had an active role in processing, preservation and in retaining quality of foods. 

There has been more research and development introducing new purposes for food packaging system. 

Consumers want to be assured that the packaging is fulfilling its function of protecting the quality, freshness and safety of foods.

Active packaging changes the condition of the packed food to extend shelf-life to improve safety or sensory properties, while maintaining the quality of the packaged food. Unlike traditional packaging active packaging plays a dynamic role in food preservation.

It has an extra function that provides beneficial conditions to the quality of packaged foods by changing the properties of foods or internal atmosphere.

Active packaging is a specially designed packaging system utilizing packaging materials and/or actively functional package objects in the forms of sachet, sheet, label and extra.

Many new ‘extra’ functions have been introduced in active packaging technologies, including oxygen-scavenging and intelligent functions, antimicrobial activity, atmosphere control, edibility, biodegradability, etc. 

The new active packaging systems increase product security, safety, protection, convenience, and information delivery.

The packaging materials are designed to monitor the condition of the food and to communicate.
Improving the safety of food using active packaging

Physical protection of food packaging

One of the main objective of the packaging of food is to protect it against spoilage or deterioration due to physical damage, among other things, shock, vibration, compression, temperature , etc.

During product life, particularly in storage, distribution and consumer handling, products are subjected to vibration on vehicles, compressive loads during stacking in warehouses and sudden jolts and knocks.

Physical damage can be caused by compression during storage and transport. Special care should be exercise in handling cases containing packs of frozen products.

The packaging protects food from mechanical damage during supply and distribution. Physical barriers resist impact, abrasion and crushing damage, so they can be used as shipping containers and as packaging for delicate foods.

The carton itself gives physical protection and protection against moisture and oxygen transfer is provided by a barrier overwrap or a sealed inner pouch or liner.

For fragile products that are susceptible to crushing, such as breakfast cereals and biscuits the outer carton provides protection from physical damage and from potential tampering.

Physical protection of food packaging