Magazine: Packaging innovations in the food industry

The Food Industry Directorate has organised a conference with the title ‘Together for the food industry’, focusing on the regulations, trends and packaging materials used in the food industry.

Marcell Keleti, food industry director of the Hungarian Chamber of Agriculture (NAK) opened the conference. The first speaker was Dr Krisztina Rita Dörnyei, a college professor at the International Business School, who talked about the three stages of developing a packaging design: the customer makes the necessary preparations, the packaging company develops a solution and finally the customer puts the product on the market. She stressed the importance of market knowledge and made it clear that the process can only be successful if the tasks are distributed well, and the various steps are described in a structured fashion.

Miklós Nagy, secretary general of the Hungarian Association of Packaging and Materials Handling (CSAOSZ) stepped onto the podium next, who said: many people are criticising plastics, but the fact is that if they weren’t used in packaging, many new-type solutions wouldn’t exist at all. He told the audience that every year 1.3 billion tons of food ends up in the bin at world level; in Hungary people throw away 1.8 million tons of food per year. Mr Nagy also introduced the EU’s draft regulation on single-use plastics, revealing that by 2030 all plastic products in the EU will have to be reusable or cost-efficiently recyclable; 50 percent of plastics will have to be recycled at material level by the given year, too.

Krisztina Bódi, marketing director of Kométa ’99 Zrt. talked about the role of packaging in the shelf life of products. She explained that the market of processed meats is characterised by sensitive products with a short shelf life, and manufacturers’ life isn’t made easier by the long supply chain and the small shelf space available to them in stores. She called attention to the advantages of modified atmosphere packaging – by using this technology products can stay edible up to 30 days. Another important function of packaging is that the printing on it carries important information and protects the meat from the light.

After the lunch break Alexandra Nagy, managing director of Paqart Design Kft. gave a presentation about innovative and interesting packaging solutions. She told that packaging trends reflect the materials used, the new lifestyle of consumers and design trends in general. Ms Nagy introduced the most widely used ‘green’ solutions to substitute plastic packaging. These include milk protein, chicken feather, liquid wood and PCL polyester. She revealed that the more a packaging shows from a product, the higher its value becomes. About design trends in 2019 she told that simple solutions, drawings, pastel colours, special materials and shapes will characterise popular solutions.

The programme of the conference ended with Dr Mária Gazdag Sósné, president of the preservation industry department at the Hungarian Association of Food Science and Technology (MÉTE) talking about the main functions of packaging, and discussing the problem of migration, a process in which chemical compounds from the packaging are transferred to the food. She also analysed the various quality assurance guidelines and quality control procedures, talking about the relevant legislation too. Finally she spoke about the importance of traceability, and various food safety and product certification systems.