Plastics are the most important class of packaging materials. This successful handbook, now in its second edition, covers all important aspects of plastic packaging and the interdisciplinary knowledge needed by food chemists, pharmaceutical chemists, food technologists, materials scientists, process engineers, and product developers alike. This is an indispensable resource in the search for the optimal plastic packaging. Materials characteristics, additives and their effects, mass transport phenomena, quality assurance, and recent regulatory requirements from FDA and European Commission are covered in detail with ample data.

The importance of food packaging hardly needs emphasizing since only a handful of foods are sold in an unpackaged state. With an increasing focus on sustainability and cost-effectiveness, responsible companies no longer want to over-package their food products, yet many remain unsure just where reductions can effectively be made. Food Packaging and

This book is an updating of Food Packaging and Preservation, Theory and Practice published in 1986 by Elsevier Applied Science. Since that date, many things have changed in the world. Hence the name given to the first IFTEC meeting held at the Hague (NL), November 15-18, 1992 Food Technology for a Changing World. Is the world changing for better or worse and what can food technology improve? The keynote lecture of the IFTEC meeting dealt with hunger and the challenge it represents to food science and technology. In the preface to the 1986 book it was suggested that food packaging could solve some of the problems of crop preservation in countries where starvation is prevalent. However, such thoughts did not solve any problems. The famine is still spreading in Africa. The unbalanced north-south situation evoked in the 1986 preface has not improved. The international market of foods and agricultural products is constantly changing and food packaging scientists can only explore new ways to help cope with this. Some of these ideas are approached in this book, particularly in chapters 9, 10 and 12.

Plastics have developed into the most important class of packaging materials. Their relative impermeability for substances from the surroundings has great influence on the shelf life and the quality of the packed goods. At the same time the interaction between the contents and the various components of the packaging plays a decisive role. This particular book is indispensable in the search for the optimal plastic packaging. It facilitates the estimation of the influence on the goods which come from the surroundings and from the packaging. The authors do not restrict themselves only to the description of the phenomena of diffusion or transport in theory, but they show what they mean for practical applications. Food represents the central theme as main area of application for plastic packaging. It can be considered to be the "model substance" and the findings are to be applied to many other products and systems. The main rules and regulations for food packaging of the European Community and the United States are presented in this book. Furthermore the authors emphasize the testing methods for proving the mass transport and the sensory check of the quality of the products.

Food packaging materials have traditionally been chosen to avoid unwanted interactions with the food. During the past two decades a wide variety of packaging materials have been devised or developed to interact with the food. These packaging materials, which are designed to perform some desired role other than to provide an inert barrier to outside influences, are termed 'active packaging'. The benefits of active packaging are based on both chemical and physical effects. Active packaging concepts have often been presented to the food industry with few supporting results of background research. This manner of introduction has led to substantial uncertainty by potential users because claims have sometimes been based on extrapolation from what little proven information is available. The forms of active packaging have been chosen to respond to various food properties which are often unrelated to one another. For instance many packaging requirements for post harvest horticultural produce are quite different from those for most processed foods. The object of this book is to introduce and consolidate information upon which active packaging concepts are based. Scientists, technologists, students and regulators will find here the basis of those active packaging materials, which are either commercial or proposed. The book should assist the inquirer to understand how other concepts might be applied or where they should be rejected.

The Interaction of Food Industry and Environment addresses all levels of interaction, paying particular attention to avenues for responsible operational excellence in food production and processing. Written at a scientific level, this book explores many topics relating to the food industry and environment, including environmental management systems, environmental performance evaluation, the correlation between food industry, sustainable diets and environment, environmental regulation on the profitability of sustainable water use in the food industry, lifecycle assessment, green supply chain network design and sustainability, the valorization of food processing waste via biorefineries, food-energy-environment trilemma, wastewater treatment, and much more. Readers will also find valuable information on energy production from food processing waste, packaging and food sustainability, the concept of virtual water in the food industry, water reconditioning and reuse in the food industry, and control of odors in the food industry. This book is a welcomed resource for food scientists and technologists, environmentalists, food and environmental engineers and academics. - Addresses the interaction between the food industry and environment at all levels - Focuses on the past decade's advances in the field - Provides a guide to optimize the current food industry's performance - Serves as a resource for anyone dealing with food and environmental science and technology - Includes coverage of a variety of topics, including performance indicators, the correlation between the food industry, sustainable diets and the environment, environmental regulations, lifecycle assessments, green supply chain networks, and more