MAP Tray Sealing From Nichrome
Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is the trend in food packaging nowadays. The MAP technology is gaining more and more popularity as a method of preserving freshness and lengthening the shelf life of fresh foods - fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy products and more. So what is MAP technology? Modified Atmosphere Packaging is the method of modifying the makeup of the internal atmosphere of a package - usually food packages and medicines - in order to improve the shelf life of the packed products. This technology was developed to deal with the short shelf life of certain food products such as meat, fish, poultry and dairy in the presence of oxygen. The presence of oxygen in the packaging leads to the lipid oxidation of the food product. Oxygen contributes to the shortened shelf life of the fresh produce because it leads to high respiration rates. Even microbiologically, Oxygen catalyses the growth of aerobic spoilage microorganisms. It is plainly obvious that a reduction in oxygen and its replacement with more suitable gases can deter or reduce oxidation reactions and microbiological spoilage. The MAP process generally involves the lowering of the amount of oxygen in the headspace within the package. Nitrogen - a comparatively inert gas - or carbon dioxide can be used to replace oxygen. The use of active techniques such as gas flushing and compensated vacuum, or passive ones like designing ‘breathable films’ can be used to achieve a stable atmosphere of gases inside the packaging. Packaging the product in a modified atmosphere needs specialised machinery that can flush out air from the packaging chamber and replace it with another gas or a specifically defined mixture of gases. The product is then sealed in the packaging to