Risks in Oxygen-free Food Packaging

The improvement of food quality due to preventing fat oxidation, photo-oxidation or degradation of vitamins is the objective of an oxygen-free packaging. This can be realized for instance by application of oxygen scavenger equipped packages or modified atmosphere technology (MAP). On the one side oxygen-free packages can increase the quality of various food products, on the other side the microbial state may be worse. Removal of oxygen can prevent the growth of aerobic micro-organisms, but can stimulate simultaneously the reproduction of anaerobic or facultative anaerobic germs like pathogenic Clostridium botulinum, particularly if other microbiological hurdles (aw-Value, pH-value, cooling) are not sufficient.

The objective of this research project is the evaluation of growth of anaerobic, facultative anaerobic and microaerophilic micro-organisms, especially pathogenic strains of Clostridium and Campylobcater species, in a selected food matrix in dependency of oxygen content and other parameters like salt content, pH-value, temperature or redox potential. These measurements are only reasonable in real food products, because food specific properties (e.g. viscosity) can significantly influence the microbial growth behaviour. In this way knowledge about the necessary microbial hurdles shall be gained and recommendations about food composition or storage conditions shall be made. Within the project different methods and techniques should be applied; microbiology, measurement of oxygen at low levels and the use of oxygen scavengers (IVV competence centre active packaging).