If you thought food packaging was just simple “plastic", have we got news for you! Modern food packaging products can provide an active function beyond inert passive containment and protection of food; active packaging is designed to do far more.  Active packaging incorporates components that are released into the packaged food or its surrounding environment, including material intended to maintain or improve the safety, shelf life, and quality of the packaged food.  Alternatively, the active packaging can absorb substances from the packaged food or its surrounding environment, including those that may negatively impact the quality or safety of the food product.

This session will discuss active packaging, in general and several specific technologies, including packages with the ability to scavenge malodors from packaged food and other active packages that can help maintain food quality and safety by scavenging excess oxygen inside the package.  Active packaging can, also, help improve food safety and shelf life by incorporating antimicrobial agents that can control unwanted microorganisms on the packaged food.  An exciting new approach, that will be presented in this session, is use of bacteriophages as antimicrobial agents in active packaging to enhance microbial safety of foods.

Presentations