Active packaging as an opportunity to create package design that reflects the communicational, functional and logistical requirements of food products

The packaging of industrial food products is the most important means of transmitting a product's image and taste value. When the nature of its interface and its contents are the product of carefully planned imaging, the product has notable advantages in defining its image and product identity. Modern food trends dictate an ever-increasing amount of services: The so-called ‘functional packaging’ and ‘active packaging’ are prime examples of this service. The greatest innovation within this category of products consists literally of their interaction with food. These features create numerous fallbacks within all stages of the life-cycle of a product, requiring a complex and multidisciplinary evaluation. The evaluation strategy of services which this packaging will offer to the consumer is still to be defined, and still to be identified within the key applications are the interests of the intermediary links of the production process. This requires the evaluation of the semantic and communicative aspects of the packaging which tend to be confused with the foodstuffs, the individualization of appropriate user profiles, control of logistical and location aspect of production, and a careful analysis of a comprehensive environmental balance, all issues that are parts of the objectives of the European project, Actipak. It is hoped, therefore, that the elaboration of these packaging systems will become a motive to try out a more knowledgeable and systematic design process for foodstuffs, in which innovative technology is used to provide effective benefits to the consumer. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.