Food Packaging and Logistics

The main goal of this course is to provide the essential knowledge for connecting the topics of food science to the specific problems of packaging technology and to the peculiarties of the supply chein management. Introduction: Definition, Statistics, Economics and trends of the food packaging sector, Packaging as a unit operation in food technology The selection of packaging materials: Chemical and Physical properties useful for packaging materials characterization and selection. Reliability of food packaging: Gases and vapours permeability, chemical migration and tainting (sensorial contamination). Food packaging materials description: Manufacturing, positive and negative characteristics of Glass, Tinplate, Tin-free steel plates, Aluminium, Stainless steel, Paper and board Regenerated cellulose, Plastic polymers. Rigid containers: Glass bottles, Plastic bottles, Metal cans, Bag in box, Bags in drum Multilayer cans, Folding cartons Flexible packaging. Plastic films, Composite structures, Flexible packages, Thermoformed containers Packaging technologies: Modified atmosphere packaging, Under vacuum packaging, Skin packaging, Aseptic packaging, Active & Intelligent packaging The shelf life: Introduction, Shelf life tests, Storage simulation, Accelerated shelf life tests, Shelf life modeling. Definitions, main goals and terminology of Logistic. Coding and automatic identification of food and bevereages. Tacing and tracking. Storehouses and logistic platforms. The modern food distribution. Merchandising and Category management