Ever shrinking food packs-Is it ethical or unavoidable?

What is cheating? It is a fairly commonly used and understood English word having association with a negative image. Simplest meaning is "to mislead". What does that have to do with food industry which is highly regulated in almost all countries, overseen by qualified food experts with stiff deterrent punishments for violation. If so how can food industry mislead consumers? While it is understandable that industry may use half truthful information in advertisements, to deliberately mislead the consumers to attract them to their products, it may be difficult to do the same on mandated labels printed on each and every packet of food sold in the market. But in a few case such misleading information is put on the labels also inviting punitive retribution from food authorities, if detected or noticed or on receiving complaints. Scope for misleading the consumer, however, does exist in several areas like ingredient list, brand names, nutritional information, unsubstantiated health claims, suppression of facts etc for which there are remedies, at least on paper, if the enforcement authorities perform their responsibilities with no fear or favor.

Some times not declaring some thing which statutory rules do not mention can also be be misleading. For example the use of GMO ingredients is very common in a country like the US but unlike in other countries the food authorities are not insisting on declaration of the presence of these unnatural food substances. Since there are normal products containing natural ingredients safety of which are beyond any doubt, consumer has a right not to buy GMO tainted products for which label declaration has to be transparent. If a manufacturer does declare that his products contain GMO ingredients, does not it become tantamount to misleading the consumer?. Put it in another way, why not allow manufacturers of foods with out GMO ingredients to say so on the label which is not allowed in the US. That means "cheating" has the official sanction under the US Law! Strange indeed.

Packaging technology which is a vital support industry for the food manufacturing sector has done a yeomen service during the last two decades by providing high class, low cost, functional packing materials and machinery which has dramatically revolutionized the food product manufacturing and marketing in recent years. Multilayer packaging materials with high degree of impervious characteristics to gases, volatiles and moisture have spawned new packaging technologies like aseptic packing, vacuum packing, nitrogen infused packing etc which enabled the food industry to grow rapidly and make the consumer life more livable. Added to this controlled environment bulk packing as well as unit packing has been able to reduce food wastage significantly through out the world. If some food products can be preserved for more than 5 years, it is largely due to the excellent packaging technology available to day.

There is a wide spread perception among the consumers that packaging helps food industry more than the consumer in some ways. Whether it is really true, an impression is being created that food industry in conjunction with packaging industry makes sub standard products with questionable quality parameters in pursuit of increasing profits while reassuringly the product safety is not compromised out of apprehension about punitive punishments and personal damages to the consumer. Unlike in the past when most products were being packed in transparent  polyethylene or polypropylene pouches present day industry uses sophisticated multilayer materials containing non transparent paper or aluminum sheets making it difficult to have a visible feeling about the contents before buying. Ultimately consumers have to rely on brand reputation to guess about the product quality.

Recent practices by the food industry to take the help of packaging technology to redesign their pack size and shape are raising shackles all around, shaking the confidence on this industry. Advent of vending machines made it a necessity for adjusting the size, weight or volume of the product being vended keeping pace with inflation. It is part of the vending machine design that the coins to be inserted cannot be changed easily but the content size can be varied to adjust to the cost to be recovered. Modern machines do accept paper notes and smart cards but it is still difficult to change prices frequently to keep with rise in production cost. Taking a leaf out of the vending industry, main stream industry is also increasingly resorting to a practice of shrinking their pack size while maintaining the price line, to keep up with inflation. Many consumers feel this is a great deceit perpetuated on them by the industry deliberately making them look like fools!  Jury is out on the ethical aspects of this widely practiced "Houdini" act by food industry.

Dispassionate critics do see some justification in the industry practice because consumers are highly price sensitive and industry cannot raise prices frequently that may create a consumer backlash and eventually resistance to their products. It has been proved beyond doubt that consumer sensitivity is highest when the prices shoot up crossing certain thresholds while any thing less than this threshold is not generally noticed. For example if a product has an MRP of Rs 52 per pack, increasing it to Rs 60 or more may invite consumer attention while repricing at Rs 59 may not be noticed! In India there is another dimension to pricing because of acute shortage of low denomination coins and every trader/retailer faces this problem of returning the change if paid by cash. Of course payment by smart cards obviate such a situation but very insignificant number of consumers have smart card facility, the major clientele being poor and lower middle income population who always pay cash. The much touted competition is supposed to bring down prices at the retail level but this does not seem to be happening in India, except in electronic industry.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD PACKING-THE THIRD DIMENSION

India is the only country where numerous packing materials are available, traditional as well as modern. Used news papers and magazines, plantain leaves, colacasia leaves, teak wood leaves and many other leafy materials are used by groceries and take away food vendors. Fresh meat is invariably wrapped in locally available leaves though lately plastic films and carry bags are replacing them in many places. Stitched leaves from perennial trees like teak, tendu etc are also used in some parts of the country for wrapping foods. The leaf cup making cups, designed by CFTRI in nineteen eighties, are mechanically being produced from arecanut sheath, dry banana leaves, etc and find favor with many consumers. Combinations of leaves, paper and polyethylene, give better packing material with water-proof properties.

Modern packaging materials used widely by today's food processing industry include metal cans and tins of different shapes, glass bottles, rigid and flexible plastics, laminates of different types, paper bags, cartons and corrugated boxes. While large sized metal tins are routinely used for packing many food materials like edible oils, cashew nuts, biscuits etc, Open top Sanitary cans and tagger top cans, fabricated from tin coated steel sheets and aluminum sheets find extensive use for many processed foods and beverages. There are specially designed machinery that can accomplish tasks like filling, evacuation, gas flushing and closing for almost all modern packaging materials. Form-Fill-Seal machines are in wide use for packing liquid as well as free flowing solid food materials. Aseptic packaging system, involving filling of pre-sterilized liquid products, has been widely adopted for milk, beverages and many other popular fluid foods. As most of the flexible packaging materials cannot stand high temperatures of food sterilization, products have to be pre-sterilized before filling and packed under hygienic conditions for good shelf-life. There are special laminates with polyester with or without Aluminum that go for packing of retortable foods which have found a prominent place in the Indian Market.

The packaging industry and the food industry are supposed to be complimentary with the former tuning its ears to the requirements of the latter. Unfortunately in many cases such synergy is conspicuous by its absence and food industry has to be satisfied by what is "offered" by the packaging industry. Spoilage that originates from the packaging materials used by processors is never recognized. Invariably many small scale processors do not even sanitize the packaging materials before use for packing their food products and the cross contamination can cause spoilage of the contents in many cases. It is not known how many packaging material suppliers sanitize their products before dispatching to the processors. There are well defined chemical and physical specifications for food packing materials, be it cans or bottles or synthetic products but rarely one comes across the third dimension in packing, which is the microbiological status of the supplies that are received by the processor. It is understandable that all these packaging materials undergo thermal processing during manufacture and therefore can be assumed to be free from microbes. But the storage and transportation environment can cause serious cross contamination of the surface which is rarely recognized.

Ultraviolet(UV) disinfection technology, which is basically a surface treatment technique is excellently suited for sanitizing packaging materials used for foods, Widely used by the water industry for bottling of water as well as bulk supply and distribution of water for potable purpose, UV-C in the wave length region of 100-280 nm has been found to be most effective in killing microorganisms such as bacteria, mold, yeast and viruses. UV disinfection equipment, currently available are designed mainly for free flowing fluids like water but can be suitably modified to surface sterilize packaging materials in the form of sheets before fabrication into containers or pouches. Dosage in the range of 0.4 to 30 nm/cm2 can achieve total kill of all bacteria and enteroviruses. UV rays affect many chemicals present in the microbial cell including its DNA virtually making it inactive any more. Such types of equipment must be a part of the packing ,material manufacturing systems and once treated they must be hermetically sealed to prevent cross infection during further handling. Alternatively, processors should have these facilities, especially for flexible packaging materials which cannot be washed or sterilized before filling like cans.

The manufacturers of traditional packing materials also must be sensitized regarding the need for sanitizing their products before retailing in the market. Small scale devices at affordable price is the need of the hour and appropriate procedures will have to be worked out for these entrepreneurs who must be persuaded to stream line their production and delivery mode so that their materials are safe for food contact application, including packing of solid as well as liquid foods.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/