Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Various Materials That Are Used For Food Packaging

Food packaging has several advantages. Firstly, it helps in providing a proper barrier between the contaminants from the surrounding and the product. Secondly, it ensures hygiene and reduces food contamination to a large extent. There are various kinds of packaging and some of them help to extend the life of certain foods. At the same time it enables efficient and safe transportation. Packaging helps customers to get valuable information about the packaged food. It includes expiry date, instructions for use, manufacturing date and other details. During the transportation of the product, packaging prevents it from getting crushed or spoiled. Various kinds of food require different types of packaging. The legal requirements should be met by all the food packages.
There are several materials that are used for packaging of foods. Paper, fiberboards, aluminum, glass and steel are some of the common packing materials. Each of these has its own unique properties and advantages. Paper is known to be one of the most common packaging materials. For transport packaging, corrugated cardboard is used widely. This is one of the most environmental friendly packaging materials, easy to recycle and also biodegradable.
Steel is another commonly used packaging material for food. It is long lasting and reliable as well as recyclable. It helps in saving energy and resource through the process of steel recycle. Aluminum is used for packaging especially for laminates, cans and foils. Aluminum foil is used for packaging tiffins. Aluminum is a scrap metal and it can be recycled easily.
Plastic is also being used for several food packaging and today it has become very common. Not only in the food industry, the use of plastic is spread in various industries. In comparison to other packaging materials, plastic is easy to use and offers several advantages. There are various kinds of plastic which provides reliable and sturdy application. It is also versatile, cost effective, light weight and practical. The recyclability future depends on the kind of plastic being used.
 The industry of food packaging is constantly growing and its demand is also ever increasing in the world. With the increasing population more and more people have started using packaged foods, thus increasing the demands like anything. Packaging foods are safe and they are also ideal for the consumption of children.
Biodegradable food packaging has now emerged considerably in the market. There are various kinds of biodegradable trays, biodegradable food containers, biodegradable plastics that are being used for packaging of foods. These kinds of containers are used for protecting foods from contaminants and transportation. They are also used for the purposes of delivering and storing of food. For canned foods and dairy products these containers are very ideal.
There are two kinds of machine sous vide that are used for sealing food packages. Suction device is the most commonly used machine sous vide. Seal-a-Meal systems and Food Saver make use of this technology because of its cheap prices.
Machine sous vide is easy to use and various procedures are used for a variety of foods. If you want to know about machine sous vide in details then you should surf the on-line websites. These machines are used only with special bags that are designed to pack foods. When you put the end of the packets in the machine, it sucks the air and sealed the bag using a heating technique.

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