Recent Trends in Packaging of Dairy and Food Products

118 Packaging is an indispensible vehicle to deliver products to consumers. The definition of packaging says that it is a co-ordinated system of enclosing food to protect it from tampering or contamination from physical, chemical and biological sources. Now a days consumer requires food that are fresh, mildly preserved, convenient and ready to serve. Per capita consumption of packaging material in India is 4.3kg/person/annum and still to be increased. In response to changing consumer lifestyles, large retail groups and food service industries have introduced highly competitive mix of marketing & trading strategies which depends on quality of packaging material and technology employed (Brody et al., 2008). Various methodologies of packaging technology for food have developed over the years. New concepts of active packaging, intelligent packaging and nanotechnology offers innovative solutions which plays an important role for improving or monitoring food quality & safety and extending shelf-life (Dobrucka and Cierpiszewski, 2014).