A Microbiological Perspective On Significance Of Packaging In Food Safety

The product quality and shelf life of packaged foods can be affected by the appropriate selection of packaging materials.

- Dr. Vinayan Nair

Packaging can become a shelf life limiting factor in its own right. This may be as a result of migration of tainting compounds from the packaging into the food or the migration of food components into the packaging. Thus inappropriate packaging materials can have adverse effects on product quality and shelf life.

Microbiological safety of the product as well as quality issues has to be considered, while selecting a packaging material. This may be based on microbial numbers, chemical specifications or sensory assessment. In most cases it is likely to be a combination of these. Increasing temperature is the most common means of accelerating shelf life, but other parameters such as humidity, exposure to light etc known to affect product stability can be used; often product specific and based on a considerable knowledge of the product. The danger with this approach is that chemical reactions or microbiological growth is initiated, that would not take place under normal storage conditions.

Factors affecting Quality and Safety of a Food Product

For many foods, the product shelf life is limited by specific features that can be predicted at the time of product development. This is either on the basis of experience with similar products or observations of them, or from a consideration of various intrinsic factors such as pH, water activity, oxygen availability etc and extrinsic factors such as time-temperature control during processing, temperature/relative humidity during storage and distribution etc, affecting the product.

Selection of raw materials is important for controlling intrinsic factors, since subsequent processing can’t compensate for poor-quality raw materials. Product packaging can have significant effects on many of these extrinsic factors, and many developments in packaging materials have been driven by the need to reduce the impact of these environmental factors and extend shelf life.