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Article by Packaging Print Media Editorial 30 July 2010
The perfect degree of preservation
200 years ago, there were limited ways of preserving food. In times of war, there were often more casualties from food poisoning and diseases like scurvy than from the battlefield! Napoleon, the French commander, desperate to supply properly preserved food to his troops, offered an award for the discovery of a better means of preserving food. A French chef, Nicholas Appert, won Napoleon’s award for proving that the deterioration and decay of food could be prevented by sealing it in bottles and heating it by immersion in boiling water - and so the canning process began.
The basic principles of canning have not changed dramatically, but we now understand why it works and have fine-tuned the processes of keeping products at their best, by destroying the dangerous micro-organisms, whilst preserving the flavours and textures of the products. Although this may seem simple, there is a lot of science in the process technically known as thermal processing.
As a thermal processing authority, Nampak Research & Development, one of the world’s leading packaging research and development institutions, have trained thermal processing specialists who work directly with Nampak DivFood, the leading food can supplier to the Sub-Saharan canning industry.
Through Nampak Research and Development, Nampak DivFood offers its clients expert knowledge of thermal processing requirements for foods packed in hermetically sealed containers as well as access to excellent facilities to make these process determinations – a vital ingredient for any can of food, and a must have for suppliers of canned foods.
Because foods differ, each specific food-type needs its own thermal process. Determining this scheduled process with the proper temperature and process time needed to produce commercially sterile products is where Nampak DivFood offers its customers a real value add.
“Even if the type of starch used to thicken the tomato sauce used in a product such as baked beans in tomato sauce is changed, this could affect the thickness and heating properties of the sauce and thus the thermal process must be re-established to provide consumers with a safe product”, says Nampak R&D’s General Manager, Johan Visser.
Currently supplying around a billion cans incorporating a multitude of sizes and diameters and various types of ends to the South African and international food markets each year, Nampak DivFood is providing the right degree of preservation for a form of packaging that has been around for centuries and is here to stay.
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The basic principles of canning have not changed dramatically, but we now understand why it works and have fine-tuned the processes of keeping products at their best, by destroying the dangerous micro-organisms, whilst preserving the flavours and textures of the products. Although this may seem simple, there is a lot of science in the process technically known as thermal processing.
As a thermal processing authority, Nampak Research & Development, one of the world’s leading packaging research and development institutions, have trained thermal processing specialists who work directly with Nampak DivFood, the leading food can supplier to the Sub-Saharan canning industry.
Through Nampak Research and Development, Nampak DivFood offers its clients expert knowledge of thermal processing requirements for foods packed in hermetically sealed containers as well as access to excellent facilities to make these process determinations – a vital ingredient for any can of food, and a must have for suppliers of canned foods.
Because foods differ, each specific food-type needs its own thermal process. Determining this scheduled process with the proper temperature and process time needed to produce commercially sterile products is where Nampak DivFood offers its customers a real value add.
“Even if the type of starch used to thicken the tomato sauce used in a product such as baked beans in tomato sauce is changed, this could affect the thickness and heating properties of the sauce and thus the thermal process must be re-established to provide consumers with a safe product”, says Nampak R&D’s General Manager, Johan Visser.
Currently supplying around a billion cans incorporating a multitude of sizes and diameters and various types of ends to the South African and international food markets each year, Nampak DivFood is providing the right degree of preservation for a form of packaging that has been around for centuries and is here to stay.
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