5 Up-And-Coming Food Packaging Innovations

By Isaac Fletcher, contributing writer, Food Online

With evolving technology and pressure to meet consumer needs, packaging designers are rolling out innovations and creating new solutions to accommodate a wide variety of demands from food makers as well as consumers.

Within the food industry, packaging designers and engineers are constantly in search of new and innovative ways to package food products. As consumer awareness and health concerns continue to grow, so too does the focus on packaging. This is particularly true today, in a world where habits of refrigeration and preservation are more common than ever before. Accordingly, packaging engineers are striving toward advancing safety standards while still maintaining product integrity. Here are five of the top innovations in food packaging.

Active Packaging

By using biotechnology (enzymes) along a container’s wall, packaging manufacturers can improve the shelf-life, taste, safety, and quality of the food product within. Active packaging goes beyond simply creating a barrier between food and the outside environment, and can actually improve the quality of the product. For example, bitterness in grape juice can be removed through the use of biotechnology in the packaging.

Although the advent of active packaging occurred only recently, great strides have been made in its advancement by combining biotechnology and material science to develop innovative packaging concepts.

Leak-Detection Technology

A new method of leak detection called MAPAX LD is creating a good deal of buzz throughout the food packaging industry. Instead of using visual or water-based testing, MAPAX LD employs food-grade hydrogen gas to identify faults in food packaging. Traditionally, processes to detect faulty packaging focused on integrity as opposed to individual evaluation. With this approach, defective packaging detection can result in an entire batch being rejected, even if the flaw lies within a single unit. Conversely, the hydrogen-based solution analyzes each individual item in a batch and offers a 100 percent rate of validation, eliminating needless waste and cutting costs.

Sterile Flexible Packaging

A recent patent by Coveris has emerged as a solution for sterile packaging within the flexible packaging category. The innovative packaging includes ultra-sterile, ultra-secure, composite-sampling system, offering the food industry a packaging solution that is sterile, tamper-proof, and leak resistant. Flexible packaging options that are smarter and more efficient are establishing a precedent for improved security and environmental impact for packaged-food products.

Innovative Pasteurizer

While pasteurization has a long and significant history in the food industry, recent innovations have brought pasteurization into the modern era. One such innovation is Tetra Pak’s Pasteurizer PF, a flexible, automated solution that makes use of a high-end machine that switches between hot-filled and ambient-filled products quickly and easily, allowing for efficient use among multiple products.

The new packaging solution has received a warm reception by food manufacturers that produce items such as sauces, pastes, dips, soups, dressings, etc… The technology not only increases productivity, food safety, and product quality, it is also very user-friendly, making it a highly-desired item for many processing and packaging operations.

Vacuum-Skin Packaging System

An innovative new vacuum-skin packaging system is also garnering interest from the industry. The solution, Darfresh On Tray, offers scrap-free film lidding for trays of fresh, red meat. With improved sealing power and no lid stock scrap, the system uses up to 40 percent less flexible film lidding material than traditional systems. The machine also runs about 40 percent faster than conventional vacuum-tray sealing systems, ultimately boosting efficiency and creating a better protected product.