PACKAGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR FOOD QUALITY PRESERVATION - A REVIEW

The food industry has since a few years started a move from simply manufacturing food & beverages to supplying nutrition and wellness. In the same time, a strong pressure on the packaging industry has arisen to reduce its global impact on the environment, which adds-up to the everlasting pressure on the economics of packaging. This results in the situation that modern foods require always more protection against degradation factors such as oxygen, water vapour, light and microbiological issues, while using less packaging or packaging materials with lower intrinsic environmental impact. This paper provides a review, which does not aim at being comprehensive, of the different approaches used for improving the overall performance of food packaging.