Though every one swears by the well being of the consumers, with each passing day the "purchasing dilemma" continues to haunt them because the supreme confusion that prevails in the isles of the super markets world over. The expressions like "Best Before", "Use By", "Sell By" etc do not make any sense because these details cannot help the consumers to make any discerning selection during buying or firm decision in the kitchen regarding the safety of packed foods. To compound the confusion, there are campaigns that advise the consumers not to throw the "date expired" foods because they are still "safe" to consume. Recent innovations that promise consumers a sure way of finding whether a food on the shelf is still safe for eating may provide some socour to the buyers. How far they will be reliable may be known only when the newly developed interactive packaging modes are used in actual field conditions.
"This is not the first — or even the second — time that such a product has been developed. A team from Scotland's University of Strathclyde announced their own colour-changing freshness-indicating plastic film just this January, while Canada's Toxin Alert has been working on a similar technology since 2000. In other developments, interactive packaging that is able to 'talk' back to consumers could be less than a decade away. Dr Ross Lee, a researcher at the Packaging & Technology Integrated Solutions in Maryland, US, said the use of printable electronics in 'smart' packaging was viable. Even printable electronics could help consumers and reduce costs and wastage. Printable electronics refers to powered circuits emitting an electronic signal that can be printed cheaply onto packaging. Combined with the developments in smartphone technology the trend towards geo-location based software applications; this could enable products on the shelves being able to communicate with shoppers' devices. This would allow people to see the exact in-store location of the product they seek, or be told if an item is out of stock".
The above developments are relevant only to meat and fish products and it is not clear whether frozen foods can have such devices and whether they are dependable. Most animal based foods are available in the market in refrigerated or frozen formats and the so called "talking" packaging may be relevant to refrigerated raw meat and fish, not for processed products. From the legal angle will the industry, choosing to deploy these latest "sensing" plastic film guarantee the reliability of the device? While the new development is welcome, concerted efforts are still needed to make it a commercially adaptable technique. If such devices are developed for other products also it will be the best gift of the food industry to its clientele, viz the consumers.
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