New approaches to increase food safety & communication by packaging solutions

Today, most of the food products in retail trades are packed. When shopping, consumers should have the right to trust that the packed foodstuffs are safe and fresh. In addition, current consumers increasingly value packages made from renewable materials. Several safety aspects, as well as numerous technical properties of the material, have to be taken into account when packaging solutions are selected for a certain food contact purpose. Besides functionality and protection properties, the package should give all the necessary information about the product and, at the same time, endorse the product and the brand. All these requirements represent challenges for the food production chain - new methods for improving product safety, communication and authenticity guarantees need to be developed. In this paper the safety issues related to new biobased barrier materials and novel active components are discussed. These include for example barrier properties of packaging material and detection of leaks of the packages. In addition, the capability of packaging to communicate the packed product and inform about safety aspects to the consumer is clarified. This paper presents methods that have been developed at VTT for these specific purposes for the food production chain. Part of the research is done in the on-going EAKR EU project Safety Food Packages in the Future (carried out by LUT, VTT and ÅA)