Food is the paramount necessity of people and food safety is critical to human health. In recent years, food safety problems frequently occur and draw the attention of the public. The government has also issued many relevant laws and regulations to supervise and control the food quality, which are new challenges to those food manufacturers. The food manufacturers have to reconsider the importance of food quality control, and find out the best solution to food safety problems. In addition to such as raw materials, additives and processing technique, etc., the package also plays a critical role in food safety protection.
CONVEN provides professional packaging safety solution for food manufacturers from the perspective of food packaging.
It is common food quality problem that the food becomes mildewed or the food package gets bulged. Those problems indicate that the food goes deteriorated. Once those problems occur to the food including tea, bread, biscuit, yoghourt and others, they will not be able to be eaten any more.
Microbe breeding is the fundamental reason which causes those problems. It is known that microbe can grow massively in favorable environment with sufficient nutrition, moisture and oxygen. Fat, protein and other gradients are contained in food. In environment with sufficient oxygen and moisture, microbe will breed from the food and release carbon dioxide. As a result, food may get mildewed and the package may become bulged. Food itself and package are two causes for microbe breeding.
1. Food. For example, if food packed inside is not thoroughly sterilized, or dry food is not totally dried, microbe may breed in environment with slight oxygen or high moisture, and consequently the food would get mildewed or the package may become bulged.
2. Package. If the package is of inferior quality, oxygen or water vapor may transmit into the package and cause the microbe to breed. As a result, food may get mildewed and the package may become bulged. Following are common quality problems of package.
1) Poor barrier property. Low resistance of packaging material to oxygen and water vapor is the main reason that oxygen and water vapor transmit into package gradually during long term storage and transport.
2) Poor seal performance. Seal performance may be poor if the sealing is not proper, and as a result, ambient air or water vapor may enter into the package from the heat sealed area.
3) Inferior physical and mechanical properties. For example, if packaging material is low in flexibility and puncture resistance to packed content, or low in flex resistance and compression resistance, there may be pinholes or crease appeared on package during storage or transport, even the package may break. If such problems are not discovered, food may get mildewed when massively contacting with oxygen and water vapor.
Food factor can be solved by manufacturer and distributor. As to the manufacturer, production process shall be strictly controlled, including gradient control such as water content and oil content, quality control of drying process, parameters such as heat seal pressure and temperature. Besides, during storage and logistics, temperature and humidity conditions shall be controlled.
As to the packaging, CONVEN provides a complete packaging safety solution. From the quality control of purchased packaging material, CONVEN helps to select suppliers and improve packaging processing techniques, aiming to prevent food mildew or package bulging due to packaging quality problems. The solution consists of:
1) Barrier property. For example, whether barrier property of applied packaging material meets requirements of packed content can be verified by oxygen transmission rate test and water vapor transmission rate test.
2) Seal performance. For example, by conducting seal and leak test, and burst pressure test, leaking problem as well as leaking position can be detected in time, if any, and the area of package with low mechanical strength can be positioned. Besides, heat seal strength test can determine whether heat seal strength meets requirements of packed content, and find out where the heat sealing is not proper.
3) Physical and mechanical performance. For example, tensile strength and elongation rate at break, puncture resistance, pendulum impact resistance, peel resistance, etc, test of which in combination can be used to evaluate whether the physical and mechanical performance of package such as flexibility, puncture resistance and flex resistance can meet the requirements of packing and transport.
Through the above mentioned performance tests, quality control of packaging material can be generally achieved, and thus food mildew and package bulging due to inferior quality of packaging material can be avoided.
Consisting of high precision intelligent testing instruments developed by Labthink, CONVEN Information System, and complete solutions for testing, diagnosis, quality analysis and quality control, CONVEN is a consulting packaging test service system, and has profound social value in respect of cost saving of plastic flexible packages consuming companies, product quality improving, food and pharmaceuticals quality safety guaranteeing.
