 "Smart food packaging can enhance branding: Dr Mosongo Moukwa")
Economic report forecasts estimate that the demand for rigid plastic food and beverage packaging and containers will grow at a rate greater than 5 percent a year until the total market reaches $ 5.4 billion in 2017. Flexible packaging is also on a growth path. Global demand for flexible packaging is growing at an annual rate of 3.4 percent and expected to hit $ 248 billion by 2020. The food industry makes up 70 percent of the demand for flexible packaging. According to BCC Research, the global market for active and intelligent packaging for food and beverage is to grow to $44.3 billion by 2017.
Active and intelligent food packaging have the potential to make significant contribution to satisfy emerging consumer’s demands of health, convenience, sensory and connectivity. Here, we describe approaches that companies are implementing using plastic, which has become the packaging of choice for the food and beverage industry.
Active packaging
The trend towards more natural foods with fewer preservatives, additives and dyes calls for increasing oxygen sensitivity. Market players are developing new and innovative active packaging materials that can meet the growing demand from application industries. A package system is considered to be ‘active’ if it changes the condition of the package product to extend its shelf life or improve food safety or sensory properties, while maintaining the quality of the food.
German and French wine fillers are testing Shelfplus O2 from Albis Plastic GmbH, a three-layer low-density polyethylene and polypropylene films with oxygen-absorbing properties as inner bags for bag-in-box wine packaging. Excellent dispersion of an iron-based absorber makes it possible to produce layers just 20 μm (micrometer) thick. Initial results indicate increasing wine shelf life even with less added sulfur.
In Brazil, plastic milk bottles that use embedded silver nanoparticles to kill bacteria are being commercialised. The core of the technology consists of a coating ceramic particles made of silica with nanoparticles. Grade A pasteurised fresh whole milk packaged in those bottles can last for up to 15 days, as opposed to the usual seven.
Intelligent packaging
A package is considered ‘intelligent’ if it has the ability to monitor the product, sense the environment inside or outside the package, and communicate with the consumers. The incorporation of colour changing plastics into food packaging materials is a method to alert consumers about the conditions inside a food package.
Time-temperature indicators plastics, such as Fresh Check, can facilitate the identification of products which are progressing towards spoilage, or which have loss their quality and wholesomeness. They can be affixed to a package as a self-adhesive device, and the colour darkens to indicate spoilage.
Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley and Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University have developed a wireless smart cap for milk bottles that can detect spoilage through a small electrical circuit in the cap. The electrical circuit can detect changes in electrical signal associated with an increased level of bacteria. It becomes easy to imagine a scenario where one can use a cell phone to check the freshness of food right on the store shelf.
Leveraging Internet of Things
Consumers are becoming increasingly tech savvy and are demanding more from food and beverage. Intelligent packaging makes it possible to communicate with consumers through the bar or QR codes. It senses changes in the condition of the packaged food and in the environment, and transmits those changes through media such as smart labeling that uses colour changes.
Intelligent packaging can leverage Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data to establish a dynamic interaction with sensing devices on packaging such as NFC (near-field communication), RFID (radio-frequency identification), smart labels, and smart caps. These are established technologies that some companies already use to track goods in the supply chain. But, this time, it is possible to track the quality and safety of food products at various points during their distribution and transportation. It is possible today to combine sensor information, supply chain, and Big Data analytics to track the quality of food from factory to store. Every step in the supply chain can be recorded.
The packaging industry needs to educate the consumer. Intelligent concepts that enable brand owners to interact with consumers are likely to become more significant in the future.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr Mosongo Moukwa is director of technology at PolyOne, USA, and was recently an independent consultant based in Chapel Hill, USA, and vice president - technology at Asian Paints Ltd, Mumbai, India. He is a member of the American Chemical Society and Product Development Management Association.
Email: mosongo@mosongomoukwa.com
Active and intelligent food packaging have the potential to make significant contribution to satisfy emerging consumer’s demands of health, convenience, sensory and connectivity. Here, we describe approaches that companies are implementing using plastic, which has become the packaging of choice for the food and beverage industry.
Active packaging
The trend towards more natural foods with fewer preservatives, additives and dyes calls for increasing oxygen sensitivity. Market players are developing new and innovative active packaging materials that can meet the growing demand from application industries. A package system is considered to be ‘active’ if it changes the condition of the package product to extend its shelf life or improve food safety or sensory properties, while maintaining the quality of the food.
German and French wine fillers are testing Shelfplus O2 from Albis Plastic GmbH, a three-layer low-density polyethylene and polypropylene films with oxygen-absorbing properties as inner bags for bag-in-box wine packaging. Excellent dispersion of an iron-based absorber makes it possible to produce layers just 20 μm (micrometer) thick. Initial results indicate increasing wine shelf life even with less added sulfur.
In Brazil, plastic milk bottles that use embedded silver nanoparticles to kill bacteria are being commercialised. The core of the technology consists of a coating ceramic particles made of silica with nanoparticles. Grade A pasteurised fresh whole milk packaged in those bottles can last for up to 15 days, as opposed to the usual seven.
Intelligent packaging
A package is considered ‘intelligent’ if it has the ability to monitor the product, sense the environment inside or outside the package, and communicate with the consumers. The incorporation of colour changing plastics into food packaging materials is a method to alert consumers about the conditions inside a food package.
Time-temperature indicators plastics, such as Fresh Check, can facilitate the identification of products which are progressing towards spoilage, or which have loss their quality and wholesomeness. They can be affixed to a package as a self-adhesive device, and the colour darkens to indicate spoilage.
Colour-changing package developed by Smart Lid Systems
Another example is a colour-changing package developed by Smart Lid Systems, (Sydney, Australia). The smart lid is infused with a colour-changing additive, allowing it to change from a coffee bean brown to a bright red color when exposed to an increase in temperature. Such an interactive packaging can also improve product safety and security to detect counterfeit product or to counter shoplifting activity, such as Percept of PolyOne.Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley and Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University have developed a wireless smart cap for milk bottles that can detect spoilage through a small electrical circuit in the cap. The electrical circuit can detect changes in electrical signal associated with an increased level of bacteria. It becomes easy to imagine a scenario where one can use a cell phone to check the freshness of food right on the store shelf.
Leveraging Internet of Things
Consumers are becoming increasingly tech savvy and are demanding more from food and beverage. Intelligent packaging makes it possible to communicate with consumers through the bar or QR codes. It senses changes in the condition of the packaged food and in the environment, and transmits those changes through media such as smart labeling that uses colour changes.
Intelligent packaging can leverage Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data to establish a dynamic interaction with sensing devices on packaging such as NFC (near-field communication), RFID (radio-frequency identification), smart labels, and smart caps. These are established technologies that some companies already use to track goods in the supply chain. But, this time, it is possible to track the quality and safety of food products at various points during their distribution and transportation. It is possible today to combine sensor information, supply chain, and Big Data analytics to track the quality of food from factory to store. Every step in the supply chain can be recorded.
The packaging industry needs to educate the consumer. Intelligent concepts that enable brand owners to interact with consumers are likely to become more significant in the future.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr Mosongo Moukwa is director of technology at PolyOne, USA, and was recently an independent consultant based in Chapel Hill, USA, and vice president - technology at Asian Paints Ltd, Mumbai, India. He is a member of the American Chemical Society and Product Development Management Association.
Email: mosongo@mosongomoukwa.com