SMART AND ACTIVE PACKAGING-FUTURE TREND

Here is a hypothetical question that may be relevant when the phenomenal growth of food processing industry is considered, whether this growth would have been possible but for the magnificent role played by the packaging industry in developing functional and aesthetic packaging materials during the last 2-3 decades. If at all one single factor which helped the industry to pull in more and more consumers to its products and consequently set off hectic development of thousands of products, is to be identified, it is the packaging material innovations over the years. With the advent of plastic materials developed from fossil fuels with many desirable functional characteristics, food industry got a platform to diversify their product basket, extend the supply chain and prolong the life of the products more and more giving retailers, domestic and international, comfortable elbow space for mounting concerted marketing blitzkrieg. It is another matter that food industry is now on the dock for turning out products considered by many as unhealthy, unsafe and addictive. 

The role of packaging changed from to time and as it is more or less an ancillary industry to food processing, its growth agenda determined by development of the food manufacturing sector, though non-food packaging flourished independently. Ever since the canning technology was established as a reliable tool to preserve foods which otherwise are perishable, the importance of packaging increased by leaps and bounds and to day it is inconceivable that the food industry can survive without the prop from the packaging industry. With increased volume of business, food industry started demanding more and more innovations from the packaging sector to which latter responded effectively and responsibly. Packaging industry got a bad name lately because of the critical safety questions raised by the consumers when they are used in food contact applications. So much has been said and written on plastics and their safety in packing foods that there is still no clarity on this important issue. Health experts, environmentalists and consumer activists, all continue to press for more sustainable and safer packaging systems. Whether these issues will fade away or become more strident in the coming years remains to be seen. 

While resistance to plastics will not abate for a long time to come, there is still a feeling that they are inevitable because of their versatility. Development endeavor in the field of plastic packaging has been so phenomenal that, if their safety record is improved, they can provide unlimited and unimaginable advantages to the consumers. Active and smart packaging systems are really overwhelming and it is simply not possible to turn a blind eye to these emerging innovations. The basic function of any packaging is to make food last longer but if it can alert the consumer about changes taking place inside the sealed pack or interact with the content to improve the consumer experience like change of color in sea food packs from yellow to blue when it becomes bad or including CO2 to keep the freshness longer or providing O2 absorbers to pre-empt oxidative deterioration or use lactase enzyme in carton lining for making milk acceptable to lactose intolerant people can become standard industry practices in the coming years. Packaging system that can heat up the contents without the use of external heating through exothermic chemical reaction is a development which some how did not take off when introduced some years ago.

A change in packaging can revive the fortunes of a product considered on the verge of extinction. The classical example is pop corn which was once a very popular product for the kids as well as the adults and Americans were even given the tag as a nation with pop corn culture because of the omnipotent presence of this snack item every where. With the advent of thousands of new snacks in the market, pop corn naturally faded away from the minds of the consumers. It was after the introduction of microwavable packs for making pop corn at home where microwave heating system is readily available that this product again became a roaring success. Similarly till the advent of packaging materials that could stand high temperature exposure, ready meal design for instant consumption had to be dependent on metal cans and to day several alternative laminates with different combinations are available that can be used for making retortable pouches capable of withstanding high temperatures to achieve sterility. If Tetrapack system using paper laminates to pack many liquid and semi liquid products under aseptic conditions after UHT heating regime has become a run away success, credit goes to the packaging industry for evolving such versatile packing materials. 

Most challenging task for food packaging industry is to deploy permissible anti microbial chemicals as an integral part of packaging without imparting any taint to the contents because food poisoning from pathogens is by far the most frequent danger faced by the consumers. Such packaging materials should have the ability to  destroy microorganisms , should not harm the food in any way, must be cost-effective, should have low health risks besides being legally permissible. Sorbic acid impregnated bread wrappers were used extensively in some countries but this does not seem to be practiced any more because of better technological developments in bread making. There are many such anti microbial chemicals with high effectiveness which should be considered for incorporation in packaging materials without them leaching into the contents but still keeping the pathogens away. Whether this is an achievable task remains to be seen. However availability of zero gas and water transmission film materials for food packing is already helping many products to keep safe for even up to five years shelf life under vacuum.  

Many consider Active packaging as the muscle of the industry while Smart packaging can be the brain. Active packaging does not remain as a passive physical protection system but interacts with the environment with in the pack contributing to improving the product quality or preventing the natural deterioration. In contrast Smart packaging system can enhance the consumer experience through intelligent interaction and help more appreciation of the features of the food product inside. Unlike most of the present packaging materials and the systems now in vogue, Active and Smart packaging provide an additional protective function without incorporation of any chemicals into the food for achieving longer life or better quality. Besides they will not have active contact with the food contents ruling out any product tainting. Computer inter phasing with packaging systems can be expected to make the food buying a much more pleasurable experience in the coming years.          

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

EXTENDING SHELF LIFE OF FOODS-WHAT IS THE LIMIT?

Food technology strives to process and preserve food raw materials into consumable form for periods ranging from a few days to several years. But the consumer perception about fresh quality food does not help the technologists to actively pursue the research efforts to evolve processes that can ensure shelf stability beyond a certain extent. With the advent of refrigeration many foods can be preserved for a few days to a few weeks at temperatures ranging from 0C to 8C while most foods are preserved at sub-zero temperatures for a few months with minimum quality deterioration. While safety is of paramount importance, eating quality is the critical factor that decides the acceptability or other wise of the processed foods. It is always asked whether it is possible for food technologists to preserve food indefinitely or for long periods, say about 5 years. But a counter question would be who wants to eat a 5 year old food even if there is a workable technology?

A consumer is unlikely to pick up a product from the supermarket with 5 year shelf life if he has a choice of an alternative with two weeks life. Practically every house has a refrigerator with capacity ranging from 100 liters to more than 500 liters and the freezer chest coming with the Frig can carry a few items for consumption in 1-2 months. There are stand alone freezers with small to large capacities which are useful to larger families. These gadgets are normally useful for storing both short term needs as well as long period storage with the latter coming handy to "hoard" those products offered in the market from time to time at promotional or stock liquidation programs. The very fact that consumers have a tendency to pick up products from the shelves with most recent manufacturing date reflects their innate desire to buy products as fresh as possible. This again raises the question whether there will be any takers for products with extra long life?

Food is to be preserved from two angles. First and foremost it has to be safe. The eating quality comes next but it is crucial for a competitive market that food offered has most acceptable sensory quality which includes flavor, texture and taste. Historically preserved foods using salt, sugar, acidity and dehydration were only the choices till the middle of the last millennium and the consumers of yesteryear were contented with the same for want of an effective alternative. To day situation is different with a vast array of technologies available that include canning, aseptic packing, vacuum packing, retort pouch process, irradiation, high pressure processing etc that can give products with varying shelf life from a few months to a few years. The outer space missions by countries like the US, EU, China and Russia require long life food products while military missions in far away places also stock such products. Natural calamity, undeveloped remote areas, especially in the third world countries also depend on preserved products with long shelf life.

Another relevant question is who will make products with long shelf life? The food industry which works incessantly to lure the customers to the products turned out by it wants the customers to increase the frequency of purchase as much as possible and by putting long life products in the market the manufacturers naturally are bound to suffer due to slower turn over. The industry requirement is a maximum shelf life of 9-12 months which gives them sufficient time to distribute the products with least damage and minimum recall in large countries like India. One of the biggest problems faced by the industry is the mandatory provision under the labeling regulation to indicate the manufacturing date on the label which leads to the customers picking up the most recent ones which they believe to be of best quality. The possibility of products manufactured during earlier dates remaining on the shelf without sale and evetually being returned is very high. The market pull will always be the force that is capable of dictating terms to the food scientists for their development agenda and probably long life products will invariably be the ones with least priority.    

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

THE CHANGING MILK SCENARIO-PACKED PRODUCTS GAINING GROUNDS

Since 1998, India has been gloating over its remarkable success in overtaking the US as the number one producer of fluid milk in the world. This singular achievement was mainly due to the pioneering efforts of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), led by that visionary Dr Varghese Kurien beginning 1970 under the Operation Flood Program. The cooperative movement which first established itself in the milk sector in Gujarat, spread to other states also leading to remunerative returns to milk producers which in turn resulted in quantum jump in production and productivity. Still India lags behind many countries in cattle productivity and the current milk yield from an India cattle is hardly 1000kg per lactation cycle, compared to the world average of 2000 kg and achievable target of 8000 kg. Though much efforts had gone into areas like cattle genetics, better fodder use and improvement in veterinary practices, the current annual growth of a measly 4% is considered inadequate to meet the demand for milk in the coming years.

If average per capita availability figures give any indication of the adequacy of milk in the country, it is 263 g per day in India compared to the world average of 280g per day, which is not bad. There are two factors which vitiate such calculations and any smug feeling that the country is self sufficient is likely to evaporate when one peeps into future. First average figures hide more than what they reveal and the bitter truth is that there is wide disparity in milk consumption pattern in India with the poor not able to afford to buy the nutritionally required minimum at the current market price. Second, looking at the future, there is even a suggestion from experts that India will have to go for import of milk products within a span of 10 years if the milk production does not increase to 180 million tons from the present anticipated production of about 120 million tons in 2011, implying an annual growth rate of about 6%. Whether this is achievable depends on the success of the National Dairy Plan of GOI taken up this year with an outlay of Rs 15.84 billion, major emphasis being put on improved productivity and bringing more milk into the processing grid in the organized dairy sector. If India could increase milk production six times between 1968 and 2011, the target does not look like that formidable.

One of the features of Indian dairying is that most of the milk produced and distributed is in the unorganized sector, almost to the extent of 80%. Many old timers recall with nostalgia the familiar sight of the local milk producer delivering fresh milk to individual households early in the morning. Bringing the cow or buffalo in front of the house for milking in the presence of the buyer is is still in vogue in some parts of the country to pre-empt adulteration and addition of water. Of course this scenario is rapidly changing in urban areas where rearing of cattle is almost impractical and the packed milk taking over the distribution. Looking at the relative merits of fresh milk distribution and new technological innovations that use for making pasteurized and sterilized milk, common sense points out to progressive shift from the fresh milk with high perishability mode to stabilized processed milk regime. Pasteurization after all can only kill the heat-sensitive pathogens leaving thermally stable bacterial spores in tact which can spoil the milk in a matter of few hours under ambient conditions. Ultra High Temperature (UHT)processing at 135C for 2-5 seconds and aseptic packing, on the other hand gives shelf stable product with more than 6 months life.

According to the Dairy experts Indian consumers are expected to switch over in huge numbers to packaged milk from loose milk in the coming years due to many compelling factors which include faster urbanization, expansion of middle class population, convenience factor, time constraint, increased milk consumption due to shift in the diet from cereals to more protective foods, etc. Entry of private sector into dairying also will facilitate such a transition while the fast expanding milk handling infrastructure will come in handy for setting up more processing facilities. By opting increasingly for packed milk consumers can avoid the hassles and disadvantages of by loose milk of uncertain quality, extensive adulteration and water addition becoming standard practice of many loose vendors. While on the subject of packaged milk, it is not clear why the organized dairies are not switching over to new pasteurization technologies which use cartons and plastic carboys with 10-15 days shelf life under refrigerated conditions while the whole world is using the same. Similarly the aseptically packed milk with 6 months life is making very slow progress in the country, though with a slight caramelized flavor Indian consumer will find this version more acceptable. Probably the consumer price which hovers around Rs 40 per liter as compared to Rs 20-25 for milk sachet may the major reason. The milk scenario in most Asian countries is likely to follow the Indian development which is good from the consumer perspective.

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/

http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com