Transferts dans les systèmes emballage/aliments (structuration à façon de matériaux multicouches pour l'emballage sous atmosphère modifiée des produits frais)

Malgré l'ampleur que prend la technologie sous atmosphère modifiée pour le conditionnement des fruits et légumes frais, l'adéquation des matériaux d'emballage avec les besoins des produits est insuffisante. D'une part parce que la conception de ces emballages repose encore sur des approches empiriques de type essai-erreur, et d'autre part parce que la plupart des matériaux disponibles sur le marché présentent des propriétés de transfert aux gaz trop restreintes compte tenu de la gamme de propriétés nécessaire pour couvrir les besoins de ces produits. En vue d'apporter des solutions à ces deux verrous, les travaux de thèse ont porté sur :-la mise en place et la validation d'une approche basée sur l'ingénierie reverse visant à identifier les propriétés de transfert requises ou cibles pour un végétal donné ;-l'étude des procédés de structuration à différentes échelles pour moduler les propriétés de transferts de papiers enduits de protéines de blé, issus de ressources renouvelables.Une démarche d'ingénierie reverse organisée en 5 étapes dont l'identification des besoins des produits et la prédiction des propriétés de transferts requises a été proposée et validée à travers la conception d'un papier enduit actif pour l'emballage sous atmosphère modifiée adapté à la conservation de fraises. Les différents procédés de structuration étudiés ont permis de produire des matériaux couvrant des gammes de permsélectivité allant de 5 à 18 et de perméance à l'oxygène allant de 0,02x10-10 à 2x10-10 mol.Pa-1.m-2.s-2, ce qui répond parfaitement aux besoins d'une sélection représentative de produits frais respirant. Que ce soit des papiers enduits par des procédés conventionnels (couche épaisse) ou des procédés innovants (nano-structuration couche par couche en présence de feuillets d'argile, montmorillonites), il est possible de moduler les propriétés de transferts aux gaz des papiers enduits soit en jouant sur le raffinage des papiers supports, le nombre de paires de couche (gluten/montmorillonite), ou encore en soumettant les matériaux ainsi obtenus à un balayage gazeux de CO2. Cette nouvelle approche et l'efficacité des matériaux protéiques à couvrir les besoins des fruits et légumes ouvrent la voie à la conception de nouveaux emballages mieux adaptés aux produits respirant.Despite the growing importance of the modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) technology for fresh fruits and vegetable preservation, the adequacy of the packaging materials with the produce needs remains a problem. On one hand because the packaging development approaches are still based on empirical trial and error methods, and on the other hand, because of the non-adequate gas transfer properties (too restricted to cover the large game of gas transfer properties required) of the vast majority of conventional synthetic plastics currently used for fresh food packaging. In order to overcome these hindrances, the thesis work was split on two parts:-the establishment and the validation of a new approach based on reverse engineering aiming to identify the optimal (targeted) properties for optimal preservation of a selected produce;-the study of the various structuration processes at different scales to modulated the gas transfer properties of bio-sourced wheat gluten coated papers.The new reverse engineering approach for MAP conception consisted in 5 steps including the definition of the produce needs and the prediction of the optimal gas transfer properties of the packaging, and was validated through the conception of an active optimal packaging for strawberry preservation. The different structuration processes studied allowed production of a gluten based materials able to cover ranges of permselectivity and oxygen permeations going from 5 to 18 and 0.02x10-10 à 2x10-10 mol.Pa-1.m-2.s-2, which perfectly matched the needs of a representative selection of fresh produce. Be it for conventional coating techniques (thick layer) or innovative processes (layer-by-layer nano-structuring of gluten/montmorillionites layers), it was possible to modulate the transfer properties of coated papers by changing the refining degree of the support paper, the number of layer pairs (gluten/montmorillionites) deposited, or even by submitting such materials to a CO2 treatment.This new approach and the efficiency of the protein-based materials for covering the fresh fruits and vegetable needs open the way for conception of new optimal packaging for respiring produces.MONTPELLIER-SupAgro La Gaillarde (341722306) / SudocSudocFranceF

Effect of HP/T treatments of in-package food on additive migration from conventional and bio-sourced materials

Correspondance: [email protected] audienceMigration was assessed during and after two HP/T treatments intended to perform a pasteurization (800 MPa for 5 min, from 20 to 40 °C) and a sterilization treatment (800 MPa for 5 min, from 90 to 115 °C) and were compared to conventional pasteurization and sterilization respectively. The specific migration of actual packaging additives used as antioxidants and UV absorbers (Irganox 1076, Uvitex OB) was investigated in a number of food-packaging system combining one synthetic common packaging (LLDPE) and a bio-sourced one (PLA) in contact with the four food simulating liquids defined by EC regulations. After standard HP/T processing, migration kinetics was followed during service life of package material using FTIR spectroscopy. LLDPE withstood the HP sterilization whereas it melted during the conventional sterilization. No difference was observed on migration from LLDPE for both treatments. In the case of PLA, migration of Uvitex OB was very low or no detectable for all the studied cases

Scientific Opinion on safety assessment of the active substance, polyacrylic acid, sodium salt, crosslinked, for use in active food contact materials

This scientific opinion of the EFSA Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings and Processing Aids deals with the safety assessment of the polyacrylic acid, sodium salt, crosslinked, FCM substance No 1015, which is intended to be used as a liquid absorber in the packaging of fresh or frozen foods such as meat, poultry, and seafood as well as fresh fruits and vegetables. Specific migration tests were not performed due to the high absorption of liquids by the substance. The Panel noted that if polyacrylic acid, sodium salt, crosslinked, is used not in direct contact with food placed in a pad under conditions where its absorption capacity is not exceeded, then no migration is to be expected and therefore no exposure from the consumption of the packed food is expected. The Panel also considered that non-crosslinked polymer and the crosslinker do not raise a concern for genotoxicity. The CEF Panel concluded that the use of the substance polyacrylic acid, sodium salt, crosslinked, does not raise a safety concern when used in absorbent pads in the packaging of fresh or frozen meat foods poultry, and seafood as well as fresh fruits and vegetables. The absorbent pads must be used only under conditions in which the liquid absorption capacity is not exceeded and direct contact between the substance and the food is excluded

On the extraction of cellulose nanowhiskers from food by-products and their comparative reinforcing effect on a polyhydroxybutyrate-co-valerate polymer

The present work reports on the characterization of cellulose nanowhiskers (CNW) extracted from three different food by-products, i.e., wheat straw (WSCNW), Brewers spent grains (BGCNW) and olive pomace (OPCNW), by using an optimized hydrolysis method similar to that developed to extract bacterial cellulose nanowhiskers (BCNW). WSCNW and BGCNW were seen to present optimal properties, with aspect ratio, crystallinity and thermal stability values comparable to those of BCNW. Additionally, the optimized hydrolysis treatment led to extraction yields higher than those previously reported for food by-products. The CNW were subsequently incorporated into a commercial polyhydroxybutyrate-co-valerate polymer (PHBV) by solution casting, and the produced nanocomposites were characterized. Although the addition of BGCNW and WSCNW was advantageous in terms of mechanical performance in comparison with OPCNW, no significant enhancement of the pure PHBV mechanical properties was reported because of the low nanofiller loadings used and the inherent difficulty of achieving a high degree of dispersion by the casting method. Interestingly, BGCNW and WSCNW presented reduced moisture sensitivity as compared with BCNW, leading to greater barrier performance and resulting in oxygen permeability reductions up to 26 % with WSCNW and 44 % with BGCNW.Noelle Peutat, on leave from the University of Grenoble in France, is acknowledged for her great dedication and support in the experimental work. M. Martinez-Sanz would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Education for FPU Grant 1484. The authors acknowledge financial support from the EU FP7 ECOBIOCAP Project. The Electronic Microscopy Department in the SCIE from the University of Valencia is acknowledged for the support with SEM and TEM analyses. The Portuguese authors also acknowledge support from the FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) through strategic project PEst-OE/EQB/LA0023/2013

An argumentation system for eco-efficient packaging material selection

UMR IATE Axe 5 : Application intégrée de la connaissance, de l’information et des technologies permettant d’accroître la qualité et la sécurité des aliments UMR IATE Axe 3 : Transferts de matière et réactions dans les systèmes aliment/emballageInternational audienceWithin the framework of the European project EcoBioCap (ECOefficient BIOdegradable Composite Advanced Packaging), aiming at conceiving the next generation of food packagings, we have designed an argumentation-based tool for management of conflicting viewpoints between preferences expressed by the involved parties (food and packaging industries, health authorities, consumers, waste management authority, etc.). The requirements and user preferences are modeled by several rules provided by the stakeholders expressing their viewpoints and expertise. Based on these rules, the argumentation tool computes consensual preferences which are used to parameterize a flexible querying process of a packaging database to retrieve the most relevant solution to pack a given food. In this paper, we recall briefly the principles underlying the reasoning process, and we detail the main functionalities and the architecture of the argumentation tool. We cover the overall reasoning steps starting from formal representation of text arguments and ending by extraction of justified preferences which are sent to the database querying process. Finally, we detail its operational functioning through a real life case study to determine the justifiable choices between recyclable, compostable and biodegradable packaging materials based on stakeholders’ arguments

A Decision Support System to design modified atmosphere packaging for fresh produce based on a bipolar flexible querying approach

UMR IATE Axe 3 : Transferts de matière et réactions dans les systèmes aliment/emballage UMR IATE Axe 5 : Application intégrée de la connaissance, de l’information et des technologies permettant d’accroître la qualité et la sécurité des alimentsInternational audienceTo design new packaging for fresh food, stakeholders of the food chain express their needs and requirements, according to some goals and objectives. These requirements can be gathered into two groups: (i) fresh food related characteristics and (ii) packaging intrinsic characteristics. Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is an efficient way to delay senescence and spoilage and thus to extend the very short shelf life of respiring products such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Consequently, packaging O2/CO2 permeabilities must fit the requirements of fresh fruits and vegetable as predicted by virtual MAP simulating tools. Beyond gas permeabilities, the choice of a packaging material for fresh produce includes numerous other factors such as the cost, availability, potential contaminants of raw materials, process ability, waste management constraints, etc. For instance, the user may have the following multi-criteria query for his/her product asking for a packaging with optimal gas permeabilities that guarantee product quality and optionally a transparent packaging material made from renewable resources with a cost for raw material less than 3 e/ kg. To help stakeholders taking a rational decision based on the expressed needs, a new multi-criteria Decision Support System (DSS) for designing biodegradable packaging for fresh produce has been built. In this paper we present the functional specification, the software architecture and the implementation of the developed tool. This tool includes (i) a MAP simulation module combining mass transfer models and respiration of the food, (ii) a multi-criteria flexible querying module which handles imprecise, uncertain and missing data stored in the database. We detail its operational functioning through a real life case study to determine the most satisfactory materials for apricots packaging

A Decision Support System to design modified atmosphere packaging for fresh produce based on a bipolar flexible querying approach

UMR IATE Axe 3 : Transferts de matière et réactions dans les systèmes aliment/emballage UMR IATE Axe 5 : Application intégrée de la connaissance, de l’information et des technologies permettant d’accroître la qualité et la sécurité des alimentsInternational audienceTo design new packaging for fresh food, stakeholders of the food chain express their needs and requirements, according to some goals and objectives. These requirements can be gathered into two groups: (i) fresh food related characteristics and (ii) packaging intrinsic characteristics. Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is an efficient way to delay senescence and spoilage and thus to extend the very short shelf life of respiring products such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Consequently, packaging O2/CO2 permeabilities must fit the requirements of fresh fruits and vegetable as predicted by virtual MAP simulating tools. Beyond gas permeabilities, the choice of a packaging material for fresh produce includes numerous other factors such as the cost, availability, potential contaminants of raw materials, process ability, waste management constraints, etc. For instance, the user may have the following multi-criteria query for his/her product asking for a packaging with optimal gas permeabilities that guarantee product quality and optionally a transparent packaging material made from renewable resources with a cost for raw material less than 3 e/ kg. To help stakeholders taking a rational decision based on the expressed needs, a new multi-criteria Decision Support System (DSS) for designing biodegradable packaging for fresh produce has been built. In this paper we present the functional specification, the software architecture and the implementation of the developed tool. This tool includes (i) a MAP simulation module combining mass transfer models and respiration of the food, (ii) a multi-criteria flexible querying module which handles imprecise, uncertain and missing data stored in the database. We detail its operational functioning through a real life case study to determine the most satisfactory materials for apricots packaging

Safety assessment of the process ‘EREMA Recycling (MPR, Basic and Advanced technologies)’, used to recycle post-consumer PET into food contact materials

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