As food safety standards become increasingly stringent, companies providing modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) need to ensure that they have appropriate monitoring and reporting systems in place, according to industry experts.
Two main areas of food safety standards as applied to modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) relate to traceability and hazard control.
The EU directive No 95/2/EC classified gases used in MAP as food additives, and as such these come under the regulations governing food traceability – the ability to track a food product through all stages of production, processing and distribution.
Customer-driven factors are thought to have made such regulations even stricter of late. Mette Skræ, a Food Inspector with food safety inspection company Bureau Veritas, commented, “For many years there have been regulations relating to putting modified atmospheres into packaging, but recently the situation has become a lot more strict – something that has largely been driven by customers, notably the big supermarkets.”
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