Food Safety Magazine, February/March 2012

PACKAGINGTransportation packaging is a criticalcomponent of food distribution. A studywas completed in Sri Lanka that demonstratedthat fresh produce packaged inthe traditional burlap (jute) bags experiencedbetween 22 and 28 percent loss enroute to the Colombo “green” market.This resulted from bottom bags beingcrushed, exacerbated by potholes andother road hazards. Crates restricted theforce of stacked produce and reducedthe loss to 5 percent. Programs that increasethe amount of already producedfood that reaches consumers can be costeffectiveand implemented more rapidlythan waiting for the next harvest.Food losses occur through manymechanisms and some cannot be partiallyor fully controlled. Losses will stilloccur when products (e.g., bananas) cannotbe sold after over-ripening, productis bruised and not salable, product is acceptablebut not salable due to overabundance(right after harvest) or even““Primary packaging,”that is, packaging indirect contact withthe product, is criticalto the success of anyfood processingeffort.”due to food regulations based on visual,size or shape attributes (discussed below)that are unrelated tohealth. Such fooditems cannot bebrought to market intheir existing state.Food safety can beachieved by alteringthe product from anunacceptable (buthealthy) state into anotherform. Food itemsmay be processed ormodified to improvetheir shelf life and/orvalue. This is outsidethe normal HACCPoptions, but theHACCP principlescould be applied to thepreparation of the new products.An innovative example of convertingfood otherwise wasted into viable productswas developed by Dr. Alastair Hicks,senior post-harvest officer for FAO at theSoutheast Asia regionalbranch. He developeda program on economicdevelopmentthrough village-levelfood processingthrough which ruralvillagers in less developedcountries weretrained in basic sanitationand food processingand offered basicequipment (e.g., dryingracks, netting, pressurecookers, fryers) to recoverfood that wouldnormally be lost anduse it as inputs forvalue-added food products(e.g., fried banana chips). Packagingthese products offers foods with extendedshelf life that provides more timeOur new Autoplate ® Spiral Plating System: the hot new lab accessory.Now you can spiral plate bacteria with blazing speed and performance that other platers can’t touch.Our new Autoplate delivers 35-second cycle times with three new spiral plating modes. Its innovativeauto-clean capability avoids cross-contamination. And it offers a quick learning curve plus state-of-the-artease of use via an intuitive Windows ® CE touchscreen. Get automated plating productivity from SpiralBiotech that’s so hot, it’s really cool!www.aicompanies.com +1 781.320.90001018002 Autoplate Food Safety.indd 1 1/15/10 5:28:55 PMF E B R U A R Y n M A R C H 2 0 1 2 25