Food is the lifeblood for every living being, we derive energy for all our day to day activities from the nutrients we get from the food we consume henceforth it is necessary that certain quality standards are established and adhered to, for maintenance of hygiene, nutrient value and quality standards of any given food product.
As contamination in foods is rampant and health hazards are taking a toll on the lives of people, India’s apex regulator, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India ( FSSAI) has issued fixed packaging guidelines that deals with provisions for regulating different packaging components such as plastics, glass, paper, metal, printing inks etc across the packaging supply chain.
The primary objective of packaging is to prevent the food contents from microbiological, chemical, physical and atmospheric contamination and for preservation purposes hence the quality of substances used must be appropriate to avoid any chemical reactions or contamination of food.
In its latest release that talks about the packaging materials used for storing or packing food products, FSSAI makes it mandatory for manufacturing units to coincide with the Indian Standards provided in their schedules. Food grade material or plastics must be used and for that purpose, testing must be undertaken to analyze the quality, durability and food-friendliness of the packaging material along with the communicability of printing inks stamped on the food labels.
To meet provisions of providing information and spreading knowledge among the buyers regarding the implementation of new packaging regulations, manufacturers send samples to accredited universities or perform in-house testing in their industries and derive data about the mandatory nutrition labelling as it is important for consumer information and its declaration has become compulsory of all foods lately.
Several laboratories undertake food packaging testing for ascertaining the ability of the packaging material to keep microorganisms at bay, to ensure that the seal integrity is kept intact and to analyze its tensile strength.
Since most food products are directly attached to their packaging material, their quality has a direct relationship with the budding of any microorganisms, some products also require filling gases for preservation hence the material used for packaging must be friendly for these gases to act. Sigma offers to perform testing for-
Food packaging raw materials
Migration testing
Toxicological testing