Modified Atmosphere Packaging
• As the consumers has become more conscious about their health and awareness towards fresh foods has increased, they are willing to pay higher prices for better fresh produce.
• This has led to innovation in packaging technology by preserving the freshness, preventing nutrient losses and processed food consumption.
• MAP provides extended shelf life and improved product presentation in a suitable container.
• Fresh produce has the best quality at harvest which cannot be further improved but shelf life can be extended throughout the post-harvest processing.
• Various factor affect the consumption of fresh produce.
– Mostly this happens due to food borne diseases and its different outbreaks.
– To a lesser extent it is also due to maintenance of fresh produce and off-season produce.
– This issue arises due to the fact that fruits and vegetables being biologically active can spoil due to physical injury, increase in water activity and other metabolic activities like respiration.
• MAP is a technology by which internal atmosphere of perishable products packaging is altered.
• It includes the removal and/or change in the gases for head space environment before final packaging.
• The implementation of MAP has been developed over 90 years (Table 1).
• Fresh carcass meat was exported under controlled atmosphere storage (CAS) in the 1930s.
• Scientist investigated on the use of gas on extending shelf life of fresh meat.