Why is the compatibility of packaging materials with food contents important?

Why is the compatibility of packaging materials with food contents important?

Some time ago a well-known chocolate contains carcinogenic ingredients, the culprit turned out to be packaging materials.What is the role of packaging materials in the food industry?How does it affect food safety?Ji 'nan Languang mechanical and electrical technology Co., LTD. Related experts for detailed interpretation.

As an ancient saying goes, "Food is the order of the day, and security is the first priority."It can be seen that the importance of food safety has been concerned by people since ancient times and has been placed on the same high status as the sky.Food safety is not only related to the safety of people's lives and property, but also related to the national economy and people's livelihood as well as the construction and improvement of a harmonious society, thus affecting the stability and prosperity of the entire nation and society.

Packaging is an integral part of food

The frequent occurrence of food safety problems nowadays is mainly caused by problems in production, circulation, consumption and even management.But to a large extent, food safety should be related to packaging.The choice of raw and auxiliary materials, the structural design of packaging products, the processing and production of packaging products and the label of packaging products have a direct impact on the food safety of packaged food.

In daily life, the close relationship between food packaging and food has long been recognized by millions of families.Whether in a store, supermarket or in every home, you can find food packaging that is beautifully designed, practical and convenient.It is hard to imagine what it would be like to have food delivered to every consumer without packaging.

As a matter of fact, food packaging is the last step of the modern food industry, just like the underwear of food. It not only protects and promotes food, but also facilitates the storage, transportation and sale of food.To a large extent, food packaging has become an integral part of the food, food quality will have a direct or indirect impact.In the process of contact with food, toxic and harmful substances (such as lead, cadmium, chromium and other heavy metals, formaldehyde, benzene, POLYchlorinated biphenyls, etc.) in food packaging containers and materials will migrate and infiltrate into food, causing food contamination.

Countries all over the world, especially developed countries, have set high standards for food packaging, implemented strict market access systems for food, and continuously improved the safety indicators of food packaging containers and materials, making it more difficult for developing countries to export food.The safety of food packaging containers and materials has seriously restricted the export of food and the development of food packaging industry in China.

The packaging is different according to the type of food

In the process of food production, packaging is at the end of the production process and the beginning of the logistics process, which is not only the end point of production, but also the beginning point of logistics.As the end point of production, the last step in the food production process is packaging.Therefore, packaging marks the completion of production for production. In this sense, packaging must be carried out according to the nature, shape and production process of food to meet the requirements of production.

The chemical composition, physical and chemical properties of different foods are different, so the protective requirements of the packaging are also different.

For example, cake contains more oil, soft, there is a certain optimal water content requirements, so the cake packaging should be oil proof, high oxygen resistance, high moisture resistance, otherwise it will lead to oil seepage, oil oxidation, cake moisture loss becomes dry and hard and other problems.

For example, tea packaging should have high oxygen resistance, high moisture resistance, high light resistance, high aroma resistance, otherwise it will lead to the effective components of tea oxidation, damp mildew, changes in chlorophyll photosynthesis, aroma components send out or absorb odor and other problems.

The protective requirements for packaging of raw meat, processed meat foods, beverages, snacks and baked goods also vary greatly.For example, the paint of canned meat should be resistant to sulfur, the paint of canned fruit should be resistant to acid, the container of inflatable drinks should be resistant to certain pressure, the packaging container of alcoholic drinks should be resistant to alcohol and cut off the aroma, and so on.

To sum up, the shelf life of food packaging to ensure the safety of the food and has a pivotal role, food packaging should have the ability to prevent commodity chemical changes in a block to a certain extent, humidity, light, moisture, solution of acid gases in the air, play to the role of the environment, the influence of weather protection.

Packaging is crucial to food logistics

Food packaging is not only the protection function of food in the traditional sense, but more importantly:

Compatibility with the contents of the package, such as the barrier to food, whether the food will have an impact on the package, such as poor tensile properties;

And the suitability of the packaging equipment for the finished product, such as whether the heat seal is appropriate, without leakage;Whether the packaging can speed up the efficiency of the heat sealing equipment and prevent the bag from breaking;

The convenience of consumer use, such as easy to tear, easy to cook, easy to peel.

As the starting point of logistics, after the completion of packaging, the packaged food has the ability of logistics, in the whole logistics process, food packaging can play the role of food protection and logistics, and finally achieve sales.

In this sense, food packaging plays a decisive role in logistics.In order to meet the requirements, food packaging should have a certain physical and mechanical strength, prevent commodity damage and deterioration, can withstand the loading and unloading, transportation, storage process of various forces.For example, good tensile properties of food packaging can effectively solve the problem of packaging damage caused by insufficient tensile strength of selected packaging materials;For another example, the good heat sealing performance of food packaging can effectively solve the problems such as the cracking of packaging in the heat sealing place, food leakage and pollution.Good impact resistance of food packaging can effectively avoid food in circulation due to impact or drop caused by damage and other quality problems.

Packaging test items

And these are the problems of food enterprise easy to ignore, possible quality problems on food packaging, testing projects often have barrier property and mechanical strength, heat sealing effect, smooth, composite layer stripping, and so on, the detection of these projects can timely control food enterprise for packaging of food safety problems, such as to protect the quality of the contents (including the change of color, aroma, taste, shape);Whether the heat sealing property of the finished products is good;The packaging of finished products is not easy to break during production, storage, handling, transportation and shelf life.The peel strength of each layer between the composite films is not easy to deteriorate in various environments.Sterilization process will not have an impact on the packaging, and so on.

For some products, problems such as leakage of seal between aluminized cap and plastic container, deformation of bottle cover or severe shrinkage of bottle cover are also likely to occur, all of which are related to the matching of packaging materials, food and packaging process.

In addition, if in a perspective of packaging for food safety, because the current is the biggest factor influence on food safety food additive, is used to improve the taste, and additives, in addition to a broad categories are used to extend the shelf life, if the performance improvement of food packaging material, can make less oxygen and moisture permeability, in the food processing link can reduce the dosage of additives, so that both reduced the hidden trouble of security and reduce the cost.

The possible harm of bad packing

Below we take the food odor caused by packaging materials themselves as an example, review the packaging materials may have a serious impact on the quality and safety of food.

Odors are one of the common food problems. Food with odors will not be allowed to be eaten, otherwise it may cause adverse effects on human health.In addition, the packaging itself will also have an odor problem, which can further lead to the food contents themselves with non-food odor.

Causes of such peculiar smell include: the source of food peculiar smell includes the introduction of peculiar smell in flexible packaging materials and the invasion of peculiar smell in the external environment. The cause of this problem is the quality problem of flexible packaging, which is mainly manifested in the following aspects:

(1) Peculiar smell exists in flexible packaging materials themselves -- for example, the solvent used in the production process of packaging materials is not fully volatilized, after packaging food, the residual solvent will gradually migrate to the food, resulting in food odor;In addition, poor quality of raw materials and additives used in packaging materials or excessive additives will also cause odor in the packaging of finished products.

(2) Poor barrier - such as poor gas resistance, when the finished product packaging stored in the peculiar smell of the environment, the peculiar smell of the environment will slowly penetrate into the packaging interior, causing food odor;

(3) Poor sealing -- for example, poor sealing in the sealing area caused by poor heat sealing, which leads to external odor entering the package from the poor heat sealing;

(4) Poor physical and mechanical properties -- for example, poor toughness of packaging materials, inresistance to puncturing, rubbing or squeezing in the production and storage process of contents, resulting in pinholes and creases on the packaging bags of finished products in the process of storage and transportation, or broken bags without timely detection, resulting in food coming into contact with the peculiar smell in the environment.

How to improve the quality of packaging?

In view of the possible causes of food odor, a comprehensive package quality diagnosis scheme can be issued from the source of packaging raw materials to food production process, storage and logistics:

(1) Hygiene performance of food packaging -- for example, solvent residue test can detect whether there is residual solvent in the packaging and the type and content of the solvent.For example, toluene diamine content test can be used to characterize the adhesive used in flexible packaging.

(2) Sealing of food packaging -- for example, sealing and leakage, bursting pressure test, can timely find out whether there is leakage problem in the packaging of finished products, determine the location of leakage and weak mechanical strength.If the heat seal strength test can determine whether the heat seal strength meets the requirements of food content, and determine the location of poor heat seal;

(3) Physical and mechanical properties of food packaging, such as tensile force and elongation at break, puncture strength, pendulum impact energy, peel strength and other tests, can be used to comprehensively judge whether the toughness, puncture resistance, rubbing resistance and other physical and mechanical properties of packaging bags meet the requirements of packaging and transportation process.

From this point of view, the quality control of food packaging materials plays an even more important role than food safety from the perspective of enterprise economic benefits, and also has a more far-reaching impact on the contribution of corporate profits.The third-party inspection institutions of food packaging materials can provide complete solutions to possible packaging material quality problems in the food industry and improve the overall quality and quality of enterprise products.