Extended-Shelf-Life Packaging

摘要

Just 25 years ago when aseptic packaging—in consumer-size paperboard lamination and plastic packages—burst upon the United States scene, hundreds of processors, purveyors, packagers, and assorted hangers-on hooked into the concept with all manner of variants—a few valid, but most distortions that could endanger consumers. Notions prevailed, such as that high-acid foods could not be aseptically processed and packaged (even though the earliest and most successful commercial entities were and are high-acid fruit beverages); peroxide sterilants were hazardous to health (even though billions of packages worldwide had been sterilized by hydrogen peroxide); aseptically packaged foods could not move through refrigerated distribution channels; aseptically processing and packaging of large particulates was ready-to-go (even though the Food and Drug Administration consortium just "approved" the system in 2002); and on and on.