1. Various food packaging new technologies

(1) Bacterial Detection Technology

From the slaughterhouse to the market, meat products can easily carry bacteria to consumers if there is a slight oversight of hygiene. Bacterial detection technology can solve this problem by sticking the bacterial detection membrane on the inside of the food packaging film. When the water containing bacteria hits this film, it discolors.

(2) Green Food Packaging Technology

Green packaging refers to packaging that has no pollution to the ecological environment, is non-toxic to human health, can be recycled or recycled, and can promote sustainable development. It has two characteristics of ecological environment protection and resource regeneration. The use of green packaging technology in foods can promote the development of the national economy, and at the same time provide a practical way to solve food contamination. For example, the green packaging that can supervise the effective period of food - when the food exceeds the expiration date, its packaging will begin to decompose, loose and break automatically. With the increase of the expiration date, this phenomenon will become more and more serious until it completely falls off with the food, indicating that the product has been Loss of market value should not be sold and eaten. Another important significance of this package is that it does not constitute various kinds of pollution.

(3) Aseptic packaging technology

Aseptic packaging as an industry or field, including packaging technology, packaging materials and packaging containers, packaging aids and packaging machinery equipment, packaging aids and packaging research, education, packaging engineering, and related industries and related disciplines. Aseptic packaging in terms of method refers to a packaging method in which the product, packaging container, material, or packaging aid is sterilized and then filled and sealed in a sterile environment. Aseptic packaging not only can maintain freshness at room temperature for a long time without deterioration, discoloration, and taste change, but also has low energy consumption, less consumption of packaging materials, low manufacturing cost, high packaging efficiency, good economic benefits, light weight, and easy long distance Transportation and waste packaging can be recycled and reused.

(4) Modified atmosphere packaging technology

Modified atmosphere packaging adopts packaging materials with gas barrier properties to package foods, and a certain proportion of mixed gas is filled into the packaging to prevent foods from physical deterioration, quality degradation, degradation of quality, or delay in quality degradation. There can be a relatively long shelf life. Due to the different physiological characteristics of food products and the conditions encountered in food distribution, the requirements for packaging vary greatly. There are many factors to consider when using food modified atmosphere packaging technology. The four major elements are: Proper proportion of gas mixture, gas barrier film, storage temperature, food quality and microbiological environment, these four elements are interrelated and indispensable, and their joint action determines the length of the food shelf life, of course, due to the different packaging of food, The requirements of each element are also different.

According to the level of food moisture activity, the food can be divided into three categories, namely dry food without moisture, slightly moist food with less moisture, and high moisture food with high moisture content.

Dry Food Modified Atmosphere Packaging

There is almost no moisture in the interior of dried foods. Generally, microorganisms cannot reproduce and grow. Vacuum nitrogen filling is generally used to reduce the oxygen content to less than 1%, thereby inhibiting the oxidation of foods. At the same time, food moisture must be prevented. Packaging materials should be Use a film with good oxygen and water vapor barrier properties.

Modified atmosphere packaging for slightly moist foods

When packaging such foods, oxygen is generally controlled at a relatively low level, and a certain amount of carbon dioxide is added to suppress food oxidation and microbial growth. Packaging materials can be used for oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapor barrier films, and more low-temperature storage. If properly designed, modified atmosphere packaging can increase the shelf life of these foods by more than 4 times.

Modified atmosphere packaging for high humidity foods

Fish meat, fruits and vegetables are foods with high moisture content. The water activity value is as high as 0.98. This environment is very suitable for the growth and reproduction of microorganisms, including anaerobic and hibernation microorganisms. Atmosphere packaging generally uses a mixture of carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen gas, in which the concentration of carbon dioxide is greater than 20%, the oxygen concentration is 45% to 80%, the packaging material uses a gas barrier membrane, but the requirements for water vapor transmission and Not strictly, storage is mostly frozen to inhibit the growth of microorganisms.

(5) Edible Packaging Technology

In recent years, edible packaging has become a hot technology. For example, a British company has developed an edible fresh-keeping agent for fruits and vegetables. It is a translucent emulsion made of sugar, starch, fatty acids and polyesters. It can be applied to apples, sprayed or brushed or impregnated. Citrus and other fruits and vegetables on the surface. As this preservative forms a layer of sealing film on the surface of fruits, it can prevent oxygen from entering the interior of fruits and vegetables, thus prolonging the aging process and playing a role in freshness preservation. The freshness of fruits and vegetables coated with this preservative can be up to 200 days or more. . The wonderful thing is that this preservative can also be eaten with fruits and vegetables.

(6) Nano Packaging Technology

Nanotechnology has a broad application prospect in the field of food packaging. - Sterilization improves package quality and increases shelf life. The addition of nano-particles to packaging materials (such as plastics and composites) produces odor-elimination and sterilization.

- Increase the toughness of packaging materials. Ceramic containers and glass containers have the disadvantage of being fragile. Adding nano-particles to ceramics or glass gives a tough ceramic or glass material.

——Effective fresh packaging and simplification of the process. Adding nano-Ag powder to fruit and vegetable fresh-keeping packaging materials can accelerate the oxidation of ethylene released from fruits and vegetables and reduce the ethylene content, so as to achieve a good preservation effect.

- The processing performance of food packaging containers has been greatly improved. All kinds of beverages and food packaging metal cans, domestic materials have always been poor in toughness and poor ductility defects, processing and easy to produce cracks and other technical problems. The addition of nano-particles to can-making metal materials can greatly increase the toughness and ductility, greatly reduce the forming process of packaging containers, and increase their reliability and yield.

2. The development trend of food packaging technology

Foreseeable future trends in food packaging technology are: (1) New foods call for new packaging materials and packaging technologies. The emergence of new foods such as freeze-dried foods, microwave foods and green foods urgently requires new packaging materials and packaging technologies that are compatible with them.

(2) The contradiction between human survival and social development has become increasingly obvious. Environmental protection has become a major global issue, which forces people to search for green packaging materials, environmental packaging materials, and matching packaging technologies that are environmentally friendly to human survival.

(3) The new concept of packaging technology will also appear. Such as anti-radiation pollution packaging technology, non-external energy rapid cooling (rapid heating) packaging technology, chemical pollution and heavy metal ion elimination packaging technology, food environment adaptive (temperature, humidity, etc.) packaging technology and so on. These packaging technologies may still have some difficulties at present, but they will be overcome after the attack.

(4) Modern new technologies, especially biotechnology and gene technology, will play an important and unexpected role in food packaging. Such as enzyme technology, vitamins, starter, various types of food additives, various gas absorbents, antioxidants, active agents.

(5) The realization of the packaging function requires a shift from static to dynamic in the past. For fresh foods that require growth, distribution, and transfer from before processing, appropriate packaging technologies and materials are used to prevent contamination, preserve freshness, preserve quality, and shape “beauty” requirements, such as fresh-keeping packaging in tree bagging, where fruit is not harvested, The oxygen packaging of sea (water) fish and the long-distance packaging of flowers and foods are all examples.

With the rapid development of economy and the continuous improvement of the quality of life, people’s life concepts and consumption patterns are undergoing major changes, and new requirements have been put forward for food packaging: To meet the different levels of consumption of modern people by diversification and multi-functionality Demand; The negative impact on the ecological environment and resource consumption is minimized. Expanding the function of food packaging and reducing the pollution of packaging waste to the environment has become the development trend of food packaging in the new century. It is believed that with the development of science, the corresponding food packaging technology will be continuously improved and new food packaging technologies will continue to emerge.

Reprinted from: Chinese Packaging