Enhancement of food security through appropriate packaging to build up resilience for disasters

Abstract Since all most all foods are hygroscopic, tend to shorten their shelf life by absorbing water vapour from the natural environment. This phenomenon is very badly affecting for the food security as well as in building resilience against calamities. To investigate this relationship a hygroscopic food product “Noodles” were taken and packed in LLDPE, OPP, Double laminate and triple laminate pouches and stored at 85% RH and 25°C. Samples were drawn weekly up to 14 weeks and determined increment of moisture content. Results were analyzed to determine co-relationship between storage time and moisture ingress and also to develop an equation “how long the Noodles can be kept safe” under different packaging materials by performing regression analysis. Result revealed that there is a strong positive co-relationship between moisture ingress and period of storage of noodles packed in LLDE, OPP, DL and TL packaging materials as coefficient of correlation ship were 0.89, 0.99, 0.98 and 0.99 respectively. The developed equations for the same order of the packing materials for maximum period of storage were y = 6.31 + 0.606x, y = 6.92 + 0.307x, y = 7.07 + 0.243x and y = 7.27 + 0.166x (y = period of storage, x = moisture content %). According to these equations Noodles can be stored safely for 12, 19, 28 and 42 weeks respectively in LLDE, OPP, DL and TL packaging materials.