Food Packaging Technology and Environment

Food packaging is the largest application area for the packaging industry. The output value of the food packaging industry accounts for more than 60% of the total output value of the packaging industry, which is in line with the status of the food industry itself.

China's food industry includes beverages, dairy products, wine and alcoholic beverages, edible oils, confectionery, convenience foods, condiments and many other market segments. Among them, beverages, dairy products and beer are the industries with the highest demand for single packaging products such as PET bottles, two-piece cans, and paper composite aseptic packaging.

The improvement and development of food packaging, on the one hand, depends on the progress of packaging technology itself, on the other hand, it has a lot to do with the changes in product sales environment and conditions, and changes in people's living standards and living habits. Every successful food package is the perfect combination of the three.

Daimler's packaging and diversion are the world's largest packaging companies and the most successful foreign packaging companies in the Chinese market. Some people even said that: Tetra Pak's ultra-high temperature sterilization technology and aseptic packaging have created China's booming liquid milk market and the dairy industry.

To be fair, this argument is not very exaggerated.

Since China's milk source is far from the central city, the sales volume of dairy enterprises cannot exceed 500 kilometers before the complete cold chain is formed. In particular, liquid dairy products companies are difficult to be strong. With the advent of Tetra Pak's aseptic packaging technology, the shelf life of liquid dairy products has been extended to more than one year, which has become a prerequisite for the expansion of Chinese dairy products.

The same is Tetra Pak, which is predominant in the Chinese market, but it is difficult in the U.S. market. On the one hand, it is because of the strong international competitiveness of competitors in the US market, but more importantly, the United States has already formed a complete cold chain system. In this environment, the US market has been completely occupied by pasteurized milk.

It is not difficult to understand why, with the improvement of China's cold chain, dairy packaging companies headed by International Paper have launched a counterattack on Pakistani milk in the Chinese market.

Whether it is Tetra Pak or International Paper, China's dairy packaging market is still dominated by paper composite packaging, which makes the product packaging in the Chinese dairy market uniform, lack of personality, manufacturers are also difficult to differentiate operations. Therefore, looking for other forms of dairy packaging has always been a keen enterprise. Although the Chinese market still has composite paper or plastic flexible packaging such as Bailebao and Teli Pillow, it has not been able to flourish like beverage packaging.

The technology of HDPE bottles for normal temperature milk packaging has matured and may become the next hot spot for dairy packaging. The main reason why companies are still waiting to see is huge investments. However, compared to normal-temperature milk packaging, it is easier to diversify dairy packaging, and it will be a new packaging system based on cold chain development.

Consumption habits and meat product packaging There are fewer and fewer cooked meat products processed on the Chinese market. Many cities have already required supermarket-processed cooked meat products to be packaged and sold.

Packaging is a requirement for the large-scale production of food industry. Only with good packaging can food companies expand their sales radius and establish brands better. Today, Chinese consumers have fully recognized packaged cooked meat products because sales of these products are mainly done in supermarkets.

The raw meat of European and American countries is also basically sold in hypermarkets or food malls. Even if overseas Chinese are used to buying in the market, the proportion of unpackaged raw meat is also very low. This is very different from the current situation in China. At present, the proportion of Chinese raw meat packaging is very low. Even the residents of large cities purchase raw meat mainly in the fresh market. Raw meat packaging is still not acceptable to most consumers. This is related to the Chinese people's consumption habits and misconceptions about the nutrition of meat products. The Chinese have not widely accepted the idea of ​​pre-cooled raw meat that is more nutritious and has better taste. Most people still habitually believe that the closer the meat is to the time of slaughter, the better.

The reasons for the slow development of raw meat packaging in China for a long time are the consumption habits and the prejudice in understanding, and the second is the limitation of the consumption level. With China's rising consumption levels, higher demand for nutrition and hygiene, and the impact of large-scale sales outlets on urban residents' consumption habits, China's raw meat packaging is beginning to accelerate its development. As in the case of cooked meat packaging in the past, once accepted by the market, it could quickly expand beyond the expectations of experts in a very short period of time.

The loss of plastic beer bottles and the enthusiasm of transparent bottle labels for the plastic beer bottles have recently been reduced, but it does not mean that the market has been immersed. On the contrary, it is the darkness before dawn.

Plastic beer bottles have not yet opened up the market in China, mainly due to the following factors:
1. The technology itself is not closed. There is a possibility of delamination of the multilayer bottle, and the coated bottle has a coating off phenomenon;
2. Does not match the existing process. The existing sterilizing and filling lines of breweries cannot be directly used for the use of plastic beer, and a larger investment is required to change the line;
3. The cost is higher than glass bottles, although the cost gap is gradually narrowing.

There is a demonstration effect of product promotion. A successful case may drive the development of an industry. Although some bottle-making companies have been seeking cooperation with the brewery, no breakthroughs have been made so far. There is a misunderstanding between this. In order to open up the market, technology suppliers and bottle-making companies of plastic beer bottles are relocating the existing production lines of beer companies. They always try to allow beer bottles to be adapted to the glass bottle production line. They think that this is easily accepted by beer companies. , but it may not be possible to obtain perfect results if you shave your feet. Maybe change his mind and try to convince the brewery to use the plastic beer bottle production line to design the process route when it comes to new production lines. It is easier to obtain satisfactory results.

In addition, Valet filling is becoming a new industry. Anxious bottle-making companies may set up a plastic beer filling line on one day to start the application market for plastic beer bottles in China. Of course, beer production companies are more complex than beverage production technologies and can do it now. It's just a guess.

In contrast to the difficulties of plastic beer packaging, the transparent beer label has grown rapidly. After the first company in Jinwei Beer invested heavily in the introduction of the German transparent label labeler, the transparent beer label quickly spread in the high-end beer market. At present, brand names such as Heineken and Carlsberg have begun to use this new label product to enhance Brand.

Convenient food packaging should be convenient and convenient Food is one of the fastest growing packaging markets. Products include instant noodles, biscuits, convenient snacks and so on. Due to the wide variety, packaging is also very different. The first thing to note about convenience food packaging is that it should provide the best convenience.

Many convenience foods are packaged in one-time consumption, and are mainly packaged in plastic bags. Most of these products are carved into a triangular mouth on one side of the bag to facilitate the consumer to tear open the package; aluminum-plastic composite plastic bags are generally cut into a row of sharp corners at the sealing edge of the bag. A common problem with this kind of packaging is that it is difficult to keep the tearing out of the neat openings. The tears often appear irregularly shaped, causing the contents to fall. The latest technology is to use a laser scoring machine to create a shallow scratch above the bag so that the consumer can tear a neat opening every time. I believe this technology will soon be promoted in the domestic food industry.

There are many problems with convenient food packaging that need to be eaten many times. The zipper bags commonly used abroad have not been widely used in domestic convenience food packaging. The combination of plastic “zip-lock” and laser scoring technology will provide real convenience for convenience foods that need to be resealed.

The diversity of food packaging provides food packaging designers with a vast space for imagination and experimentation. Food design is moving away from a single graphic design model. It focuses more on function and structure, safety and hygiene, and deeper understanding of consumer habits.

Food packaging has also gradually evolved from individual behavior to collective behavior. This group includes food engineers, packaging engineers, and marketers from inside the company, as well as packaging structure engineers and graphic designers from design companies, and engineers from production companies such as printing houses.

Source: Food Forum