Food Safety Magazine, February/March 2012

PACKAGINGto commercial sterility) or aseptic packaging(introducing a sterile product—typically processed through high-temperature,short-time processing—into a sterilepackage in a sterile environment), ahermetic package is critical to foodsafety. Dried, fermented,natural andprocessed foods all requireappropriate packagecontainment andprotection.Food safety is typicallydefined in termsof food hazards thatresult in disease. Diseaseresulting from nutritionalinadequacy, ormore critically, starvation,is not typicallyconsidered in the foodhazard category. It isreasonable to extendthe definition of foodsafety to include adequacy.Packaging thatextends shelf life, helpsretain nutrients and allowsfood to be transportedto remote areasthen becomes an importantcomponent ofboth the food safety and adequacy componentsof food security. We can extendthe hazard list to include:• Chemical contamination: mostfeared by consumers• Physical abuse: most noticed byconsumers• Microbiological hazards: mostdangerous and already the majoremphasisWe can also include actions that reducethe food supply:• Biological attack (e.g., birds, rodents,insects)• Biological action of product (e.g.,senescence and sprouting)““A significantdevelopment in thepromotion of foodsafety was theconcept of processCan HACCP Incorporate All ofThese Hazards?I proposed a post-harvest HACCP(PHHACCP) plan in 2005 as an effectiveand rational means of ensuring foodprotection and delivery from harvestthrough consumption. The “Hazard”definition was extended to include anythingthat renders food unusable forhuman consumption, and therefore unableto sustain life.The Food Safety Alliancefor Packaging(FSAP; a technicalcommittee of the Instituteof Packaging Professionals)hasdeveloped HACCPmodels for a variety ofpackaging materials.These models are availableon www.foodsafetyallianceforpackaging.com andextend the HACCPprinciples to the manufactureof packagingmaterials.The post-harvestcomponent extendshazard concerns toother components ofthe distribution environment,includingstorage facilities, handling,transportationpackaging (in terms of protection fromexternal forces), transportation modesand environmental realities (includingweather and fauna).PHHACCP would add the followingto the HACCP principles:1. Include analysis for the entiredistribution chain2. Identify each mechanism of food loss(nutrition or quantity)3. Evaluate which mechanisms can becontrolled4. Evaluate which mechanisms shouldbe controlled5. Establish limits6. Continue with HACCP principlescontrol versus samplingof finished”product, that is,prevention ratherthan inspection.”Controlling Food LossesThere is a growing realization thathandling, processing, packaging, storageand transportation (collectively, post-harvest)have the potential to reduce globalhunger on par with increases in globalfood production. The Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations(FAO) presented two significant reportsthat were prepared for the Save FoodCongress held in association with Interpackin May 2011. The first report,“Global Food Losses and Food Waste”(www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ags/publications/GFL_web.pdf), estimatedworld food losses at 33 percent, or 1.3billion tons per year. The second report,“Appropriate Food Packaging Solutionsfor Developing Countries”(www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ags/publications/AFP_web.pdf), describedpackaging roles to reduce food losses.This was a significant change from theFAO stance at the World Food Summit:five years later (Rome, 2002) at whichmost efforts to address hunger werebased on improving agricultural production.The U.S. sponsored a symposiumat that summit in which presidents ofthree African countries presented reportsthat genetically modified seeds improvedharvest yields by up to 500 percent. Imet with the Ghana minister of agricultureafter this symposium, and he confirmedthat Ghana’s infrastructure wasincapable of handling all of this increaseand food losses had risen. The increasedproduction, therefore, did not yield aproportional increase in the food supply.Shelf life or usable life defines thelength of time that a product can be distributedand used after distribution. Bananasoffer a simple example. Bananaslast for months in the green state anddays in the ripe, yellow state. Scrubbingthe growth hormone that triggers senescence,ethylene, maintains bananas inthe more stable state until just prior topoint of sale. Bananas are then exposed(during storage) to approximately 1 ppmethylene to resume the ripening process.The result is that we have bananas availableall year and those in a specific supermarkettend to be close to the samedegree of ripeness. The shelf life is definednot by the primary packaging, butrather by the entire distribution chain.24 F O O D S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E