This document discusses packaging for non-thermal food processing. It introduces non-thermal food processing techniques as alternatives to traditional thermal processes that can damage foods. Active and intelligent packaging technologies are described that can help preserve foods without heat, including oxygen scavengers, antimicrobials, and indicators. Special requirements for active and intelligent packaging materials include ensuring they do not mislead consumers or alter foods in a way that requires labeling. The document concludes that some active technologies show promise but challenges remain in developing reliable alternatives to thermal processing while maintaining food safety and quality.

1. PACKAGING FOR NON -THERMAL PROCESSING OF FOOD
PRESENTED BY
PRACHI PAHARIYA
AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
IIT KHARAGPUR

2. CONTENTS
 INTRODUCTION
 NON-THERMAL PROCESSING OF FOODS
 CHARACTERISTICS OF NON-THERMAL PROCESSES
 PACKAGING FOR NON-THERMAL PROCESSING
 ROLES OF FOOD PACKAGING SYSTEMS
 ROLE OF ACTIVE PACKACKAGING IN NON -THERMAL PROCESS
 ACTIVE PACKAGING
 ACTIVE PACKAGING TECHNOLOGIES
 ACTIVE PACKAGING:MOISTURE CONTROL
 ACTIVE PACKAGING: OXYGEN CONTROL
 ACTIVE PACKAGING:CARBON DIOXIDE CONTROL
 ANTIMICROBIAL PACKAGING
 ANTIOXIDANT PACKAGING
I NTELLIGENT PACKAGING
 SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR ACTIVE AND INTELLIGENT MATERIALS IN
WHICH THE MAIN ISSUES ARE
 CONCLUSIONS
 REFERENCES

3.  Every year a growing amount of edible food is lost along the entire food
supply chain (production, retailers, consumers).
 The growing consumer demand for minimally processed, more natural, fresh
and convenient food products as well as continuous changes at industrial, retail
and distribution levels challenges to food safety and quality.
 The function of food packaging has evolved from simple preservation
methods to include such aspects as convenience, point of purchase marketing,
material reduction, safety, tamper-proofing, and environmental issues .
INTRODUCTION

4. NON-THERMAL PROCESSING OF FOODS
 Food processors traditionally utilized thermal processes, that is, cooking, blanching,
pasteurization, and sterilization, to inactivate microorganisms, enzymes, and other
chemical reactions in food materials as well as to cook raw foods for extending the
period of desirable quality and safety level.
 Because of numerous practical applications of heat treatments with various types
of foods, from prehistoric age until today, many chemical and physical changes
taking place in foods after the thermal process.
 Not only the changes in the nature of food products after thermal processes, but
also the chemical interactions between thermally processed foods and common
food packaging materials are well identified.

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF NON-THERMAL PROCESS
 Non-thermal processes are food preservation methods to inactivate
spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms at temperatures below those
used for thermal pasteurization without significant changes to flavour,
colour, taste, nutrients, and functionalities (Min and Zhang 2005).
 Non-thermal processes do not utilize increased temperature to
inactivate decomposing microorganisms and enzymes. This is the biggest
advantage of non-thermal processes because this low-temperature
pasteurization does not overcook food and/or degrade foods .
 They involve the use of high electric power, high pressure, high intensity
of light/radiation, micro filters, chemicals, or antagonistic cultures.
 Compared with heat treatment, the quality attributes of non-thermally
treated foods are obviously different from those of thermally processed
food products.

6. PACKAGING FOR NON-THERMAL PROCESSING
 Food products and packaging material interacts with each other.
 Non-thermal processes can be operated with aseptic processing units.
 To maintain the sterility of non-thermal processed foods, the
processed must be packaged before the sterility food exposed to
atmosphere.
 Aseptic packaging units are required after non-thermal process such as
pulse-electric field, high-pressure process, irradiation, pulsed light
emission.

7. ROLES OF FOOD PACKAGING SYSTEMS
 Food is packaged for storage, preservation, and protection
traditionally for a long time.
 Basic functions of food packaging are better maintenance of quality
and handling of foods.
 Superficial functions are required for food marketing, distribution,
and consumer-related issues, which are to provide required
information, handling and dispensing convenience, sales promotion,
and stock management.
 The main goal of food packaging is to maintain the quality of
packaged foods during distribution.

8.  Functions of food packaging have moved from containment,
preservation, and protection to convenience and sales promotion,
which indicates that the role of food packaging is shifting from
technical functions to socioeconomic functions.
 Functions that could secure the integrity of packaging are
considered as very important roles of packaging, including tamper-
evidence packaging, antimicrobial packaging, freshness indicator,
time-temperature indicator, and electronic coding system.

9. PURPOSE
 ACTIVE PACKAGING-
The purpose of the ‘active packaging’ is the extension of the
shelf-life of the food and the maintenance or even
improvement of its quality.
 INTELLEGENT PACKAGING-
The purpose of ‘intelligent packaging’ is to give indication
on, and to monitor, the freshness of the food.

10. ACTIVE PACKAGING
 Active packaging usually means having active functions beyond the
inert passive containment and protection of the product.
 Convectional mainstream packaging such as paperboard, metal, glass
and plastic may be classified as gas and water vapour barrier or non
barrier ,such as paperboard, unless coated.
 Active packaging senses changes in
the internal or external
environment and responds by
altering the package properties.

12. ACTIVE PACKAGING TECHNOLOGIES
 Moisture
• Liquid
 Purge
 Absorbents
 Incorporate into pads
 Relative humidity
 Incorporate into package structure
 Incorporative into cartridges
 Usually to elevate level
 Gas: to control levels
 Oxygen
 Carbon dioxide
 Ethylene
 Water vapour
 Odours

13.  Antimicrobials
 Light and relative radiation blocking
 To control the amount of reaching content
 Self heating
 Exothermic reaction of water and mineral constituent
 Self cooling
 Evaporation of liquid
 Expansion of compressed gas

14. ACTIVE PACKAGING:MOISTURE CONTROL
 Desiccants such as silica gel in moisture
permeable plastic pouches are common in
distribution packages of electronic devices,
instruments, medical analytical kits.
 Another major application of moisture
controller, numbering in billions of units, is in
liquid absorbents pad inserted in trays of fresh
red meat, poultry, seafood and fresh produce.

15. PURPOSE
 To remove the bulk of excess liquid purge drip or condensate
arising from squeeze or aging of product with gravity.
 The food may be constituted of wood pulp fibres within
perforated polythene film or polymer such as carboxymethyl
cellulose in cavities topped with spun bounded polyolefin.

16. ACTIVE PACKAGING: OXYGEN CONTROL
 Oxygen is major deteriorative biochemical and aerobic microbiological
growth stimulate vector in food products.
 Oxygen removal and subsequent exclusion by gas barrier packaging are
key factor in food preservation.
 Oxygen removal started with mechanical methods such as vacuum, steam,
inert gas with reactive mechanism of Oxygen scavengers.
OXYGEN SCAVENGER
 Also called absorbers.
 Remove excess oxygen from the internal package environment.
 They may be incorporated in sachets (small pouches) or label affixed to
the package or incorporated into package material.
Most commercial oxygen scavengers- ferrous iron, which require water for
activation to react with oxygen , to form ferric iron, a dark colour compound.
 Organic oxygen scavengers include unsaturated hydrocarbons, nylons.

17. OXYGEN SCAVENGERS

18. ACTIVE PACKAGING:CARBON DIOXIDE CONTROL
 CO2 may be added to complement existing, procedure/microbiological
respiratory CO2 or to maintain the existing level by generating it from
chemical reaction.
 In excess, CO2 is able to injure the food quality, and hence sometime it
may be advisable to remove excess from modified atmosphere (MAP)
as in packaged respiring produce.
 Carbon dioxide is a known antimicrobial agent
whose activity is probably by pH reduction
and whose label should be controlled to
optimize the desired effect.

19. ANTIMICROBIAL PACKAGING
 The development of antimicrobial packaging presents a promising
approach to actively control the growth of micro-organisms.
 Microbial growth
accelerates changes in the
aroma, colour and
texture of food resulting
in shelf life reduction and
increased risk of food
borne illnesses.

20.  Antimicrobial packaging materials have to be in direct contact with the
food surface if they are non-volatile and can be either immobilised on the
materials surface or migrate into the food.
 Antimicrobial packaging is effective on food products were the microbial
contamination occurs at the surface.
 Antimicrobial food packaging
materials extend the lag phase
and reduce the growth phase
of micro-organisms in order to
extend shelf life and to
maintain food quality and
safety (Han, 2000).

21. ACTIVE PACKAGING :Antimicrobials proposed
for or in commercial use
 Antimicrobials
 Contact
 Silver salts
 Acids
 Antibiotic such as nisin
 Non-contact
 Allyl isothiocyanate
 Chlorine dioxide
 Ethanol
 Natural species such as oregano and carvacrol
 Natural flavorants such as diacetyl

22. ANTIOXIDANT PACKAGING
 An alternative to oxygen scavenging to prevent food oxidation by active
packaging is the inclusion of antioxidants in packaging materials.
 Oxidative processes are one of the primary mechanisms of quality
deterioration in meat and meat products .
 Antioxidants have been used successfully to inhibit oxidation in foods.
 Active packaging represents an innovative strategy to incorporate
antioxidants in a polymer to prevent oxidative processes and extend the
shelf life of food products.

23.  Antioxidant agents can be applied into the packaging systems in different
forms (sachets, labels, coating or immobilization on packaging material
surface, incorporated into the polymer matrix, multilayer films).
 An antioxidant film coating (ATOX) containing oregano essential oils at
different concentrations suitable for MAP packaging of fresh meat.
 Several advantages such as lower amounts of active
substances required, localized activity, controlled
release of antioxidants, and elimination of processing
steps such as mixing, immersion or spraying.

24. INTELLIGENT PACKAGING
 Intelligent packaging is designed to monitor the condition of the packed
food or the environment surrounding the food (European Commission,
2009).
 An intelligent packaging system is capable of detecting, sensing,
recording, tracing, or communicating information about the quality
and/or the state of the product during the whole food chain (Yam,
Takhistov, & Milts, 2005).
 The package will provide information not only about the product itself
(origin, theoretical expiration date, composition), but will also be able to
inform about the history of the product (storage conditions, headspace
composition, microbial growth, etc.).

25.  Indicators inform about a change occurred in
product or its environment (e.g. temperature,
pH) by means of visual changes.
 Indicators with application to food packaging are time temperature indicators,
oxygen and integrity indicators and freshness indicators.
 Biosensors are devices able to detect, record and transmit information related to
biological reactions occurring in the package with great precision (Yam et al., 2005).
 The intelligent function can be obtained by
indicators, sensors and devices able to
communicate information about the packaging
system.

26. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR ACTIVE AND INTELLIGENT
MATERIALS IN WHICH THE MAIN ISSUES ARE:
 Active materials may bring about changes in the composition or
organoleptic characteristics of food on the condition that the changes comply
with the community or national provisions applicable to food.
 Substances that are released from active packaging shall be authorised and
used in accordance with the relevant community provisions applicable to
food.
 Adequate labelling to indicate that the materials are active and/or
intelligent.

27.  Active materials shall not bring about changes in the composition
or organoleptic characteristics of the food, for instance by masking
the spoilage of food, which could mislead the consumer.
 Intelligent materials shall not give information about the condition
of the food which could mislead the consumer.
 Adequate labelling to allow identification of non-edible parts.

28. PACKAGING : INNOVATION FOR THE FUTURE
 Needed for Active packaging more comprehensive reduced oxygen
control, more functional antimicrobials with fewer secondary effects and
reliable persistent CO2 sourcing.
 Needed for Intelligent packaging are sensors to actuate RFID (Radio
frequency identification) and RFID devices with lower environmental
sensitivity.
 In nonthermal processing, ionizing radiation must exhibit fewer adverse
secondary effects perhaps by the incorporation of free radical .

29.  Needs of (desires for) the packaging- nonthermal processing
interfaces include active packaging agents that offer solutions
to non-thermal processing issues such as:
• Active radical acceptor in package structure for ionizing
radiation.
• In-package structure oxygen removal to reduce oxygen to
near zero.
• High-pressure-sensitive antimicrobial release oxygen
scavenger system.
• Greater concentration of active packaging agents.

30. CONCLUSIONS:
 Some active packaging has high probability of wider applications
for moisture and oxygen control and CO2 generation and has
some promise in antimicrobials and self- heating packages.
 Intelligent packaging holds promise for commercial application in a
time/temperature integration as a surrogate for shelf life
indication, in location indicators for inventory control, in
microwave oven control, and eventually to be converted into
active packaging.

31. REFERENCES
S
Han, 2007 J.H. Han
Packaging for non-thermal processing of food, pp. 3-28
Blackwell Publishing Ltd (2007)
Volume 98, Issue 3, November 2014, Pages 404–419
Meat Science, Sustainability & Innovation: ‘60th International Congress of Meat
Science and Technology 17-22 August 2014, Punta del Este, Uruguay’
Trends in Food Science & Technology
Volume 19, Supplement 1, November 2008, Pages S103–S112
EFSA Forum: From Safe Food to Healthy Diets
Busolo, M. A., & Lagaron, J. M. (2012). Oxygen scavenging polyolefin nanocomposite
films containing an iron modified kaolinite of interest in active food
packaging applications. Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies, 16, 211–
217.

32. THANK YOU