Barrier plus double act for longer shelf life. (News & Installations).

For the past twenty years the use of plastics in food packaging has grown considerably. This trend is hardly surprising. Plastic offers manufacturers more diversity in terms of shapes and sizes, while packs can be attractively decorated, without incurring large tooling costs. This use of plastic, however, does come with its own set of problems. By virtue of its molecular structure plastic is susceptible to permeation. Permeation by oxygen creates oxidation causing product flavour loss and an unattractive discolouration.

Previous attempts to overcome these problems have included the use of multi layer extrusion technology, whereby expensive polymers provide a passive barrier, helping to prevent leakage. The problem here is the word 'expensive'. Furthermore, these barrier polymers lose their barrier properties due to moisture ingress at retort. Alternatively, the use of oxygen scavengers in the form of pouches within the packaging were tried but this failed to work with liquids.

Barrier Plus

Barrier Plus is a plastic packaging, from Huhtamaki, which uses both active and passive barriers within the container walls. In short, due to moisture ingress, the passive barrier or EVOH layer is effectively redundant for 59 days after retort. During this time the active barrier or scavenger takes over, preventing oxygen forming inside the container. This scavenger lies within the packaging walls, After 59 days the EVOH layer is effectively in charge again, preventing the permeation by oxygen that leads to oxidation.

It is this combination of active and passive barriers that enables products, including soups, pasta and baked beans to be packaged in plastics and stored in ambient temperatures for up to a year.

Benefits

Leading food manufacturers such as Heinz have already welcomed the technology developed by Huhtamaki. After all, it offers Heinz, and other manufacturers, the ability to create more attractive pack designs, enabling their products to stand out in the supermarket, while also offering the year long shelf life that was previously not possible.

Barrier Plus enables manufacturers to market their products in a whole new way. Products packaged with Barrier Plus can be microwaved straight from the pot, which will no doubt appeal to the fast growing convenience sector. What have been traditionally seen as commodity products such as beans or soup will be marketed towards the premium end of the market. Attractive pack designs, microwavability and the ability of consumers to 'eat on the go' will ensure this. Heinz are already using Barrier Plus to package soup with cream of tomato, chicken, mushroom and vegetable already on sale in supermarkets.