Packaging offers the food industry a marketing tool that is moist useful in the growth and promotion of sales. In principle, the product and its package are an integrated unit. The properties of one determine the properties of the other.
Packaging has become a high tech; it is no longer just a box or a bag that gets a product into a supermarket and then home onto a consumer’s shelf.
Initially, packages served simply to contain products and to protect them from outside contamination. However, there has been tremendous growth in the development and design of new packages to fit specific needs.
Technology advances definitely have played a part, for without many of these developments – such as plastic soda and ketchup bottles and microwave containers - none of these new products and packages would have been available.
Improvements in raw materials also have occurred and many packages that were on shelves several years ago have been replaced by better, lighter-weight, and cleaner containers.
The plastic segment of the packaging industry has shown the most rapid growth for many reasons. Some of the most important are:
*Plastics have a wide range of physical and barrier properties
*Plastics offer design capabilities and features not available with other packaging materials
*Some plastics can be used in microwave ovens
Packaging materials may be composed of single component (usually one chemical substance polymeric, building block form) or they may be composed of multiple components, consisting of the variety of materials, usually laminated in layers, offering many advantages not provided by single components.
Food packaging development
