Food packaging is defined as a co-ordinated system of preparing food for transport, distribution, storage, retailing, and end-use to satisfy the ultimate consumer with optimal cost (Coles et al., 2003). Food packaging is an essential part of modern society; commercially processed food could not be handled and distributed safely and efficiently without packaging. The World Packaging Organization...

● American Package Museum [1] ● DesignNewsMedia [2] -links to news web site that discuss packaging in the food, beverage, nutrition and cosmetics industries ● Dotpackaging [3] ● Materials Information Resource [4] ● Plastics Resource [5] ● PackagingBusiness.com [6] ● PackagingInfo.com [7] ● Packaging Network.com [8] ● Packaging Strategies Online [9] ● Packaging Today [10] ● Packaging Today Inter...

Throughout recent years the idea to use plasma technology to modify materials has been at the forefront. The use of plasma to sterilize packaging has become increasingly popular. Plasma has also been adopted to surface treat materials, increasing their wettability. This opens a wide variety of doors; anywhere from better printing, to bonding unlike materials during dual-injection molding. Lastl...

Petroleum based thermoplastics are widely used in a range of applications, particularly in packaging. However, their usage has resulted in soaring pollutant emissions. Thus, researchers have been driven to seek environmentally friendly alternative packaging materials which are recyclable as well as biodegradable. Due to the excellent mechanical properties of natural fibres, they have been exten...

The main directions in food packaging research are targeted toward improvements in food quality and food safety. For this purpose, food packaging providing longer product shelf-life, as well as the monitoring of safety and quality based upon international standards, is desirable. New active packaging strategies represent a key area of development in new multifunctional materials where the use o...

Packaging waste accounted for 78.81 million tons or 31.6% of the total municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2003 in the USA, 56.3 million tons or 25% of the MSW in 2005 in Europe, and 3.3 million tons or 10% of the MSW in 2004 in Australia. Currently, in the USA the dominant method of packaging waste disposal is landfill, followed by recycling, incineration, and composting. Since landfill occupies va...

Balloting on a new test method for use in the ranking of porous packaging materials used in sterile packaging applications by their ability to provide bacterial holdout was completed in July 2007 by ASTM International Committee F02 Flexible Barrier Packaging. As a result of this balloting, there is a new test method available for evaluating the barrier capabilities of porous materials intended ...

A range of packaging solutions exists for products that must be kept within a specific temperature range throughout the supply-and-distribution chain. This report summarizes the results of studies conducted over a span of 2 years by the Consortium for Distribution Packaging at Michigan State University. Thermal insulation packaging materials such as expanded polystyrene, polyurethane, corrugate...