Modified Atmosphere Packaging of Bread Products
A very common application for modified atmosphere packaging is the packaging of bread products such as:Tortilla Wraps, Pitta/Pita Bread, Baguette, Indian Naan Bread and other types of Flat Bread.
The advantages of packaging bread in a protective atmosphere is quite big, it is very common that the shelf life is prolonged up to 3 or 6 months when the product is packaged with a low oxygen content - this without additives in the product itself. Additionally, the MAP products do not need freezing which makes storage and distribution easier.
However, packaging with low oxygen content does give a number of challenges. First of all the packaging material needs to protect the product from the atmospheric oxygen and secondly the quality control needs to ensure the correct oxygen level in the package and that the packages are sealed correctly.
Mould/Fungal Growth
A common problem for MAP bread products is mould, due to improper seal integrity of the package - without the protective athosphere in the package the product is typically spoiled in a very short time. Typically, bread products are packaged with a very high CO2 content - which makes the bread products very easy to test on a leak test system based on CO2 as tracegas. CO2 based leak detection systems are available for both manual (off-line) and automatic (in-line) testing.
