Food and Beverage Packaging

Biography

Biography: Tanweer Alam

Abstract

India is the world’s largest milk producing country. In India, milk is an important food and produced 140 million tonnes in 2014, increased by around 4% over the previous year which comprised about 17% of global production. It is expected to increase 240 million tonnes of milk by 2020. The 80% of milk produced in the country is handled by unorganized sector and remaining 20% from cooperative and private dairies. India has the unique tradition of producing a variety of indigenous products. The market worth for Indian milk products is valued around $11bn. Indigenous dairy products being a perishable commodity is highly susceptible to physicochemical and microbiological changes. Packaging is necessary in order to protect the product from moisture and microorganisms. Apart from enhancing the shelf life, packaging also improves the marketing ability of a product. The packaging aspects of traditional dairy products are still at a stage of infancy. The packaging materials used for these products are various leaves, polyethylene pouches, paperboard cartons to tin/aluminium cans. Moreover, use of cans is expensive in India. Thus, efforts should be made to study the utility of various types of flexible and some rigid packaging films like polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene and various laminar sheets for milk and milk products. Active, antimicrobial, MA packaging, eco-friendly and cost effective are potential factors for packaging of indigenous dairy product. Indigenous dairy products packaged in high barrier film (EVA/EVA/PVDC/EVA) under MAP integrated with active packaging may have shelf life of up to 90 days under refrigeration storage.