NAFISPACK · Natural Antimicrobials For Innovative and Safe Packaging

The main objective of the present project is to develop novel packaging technologies that will avoid/reduce and detect the growth of pathogens and spoilage microoganism responsible for product lost in perishable food products of interest: fresh fish, fresh chicken and minimally processed vegetables (MPVs). The target foods were selected among many, for different reasons: the consumption of MPVs is hugely increasing in all European countries and therefore, it is important to heighten the vigilance around that products; it is necessary to rebuild a consumers’ confidence for chicken; fish is probably the most perishable product. Anyway, any of them is an increasing area of consumption and interest. The new technologies will improve food quality and extend the relatively short life of these fresh food products. The concern about synthetic preservatives is steadily rising, due to a limited documentation on safety and tolerance. Instead, Natural Antimicrobials (NAs), which occur abundantly in environment where they evolved as host defence mechanisms, are generally considered as safer and better tolerable. Though NAs will be used in the active material development, a systematic and scientific based work will be carried out in order to fully assess the safety of the new packages developed. Thus, along three years, NAFISPACK will develop novel food packaging technologies and novel tools for risk-benefit assessment of these technologies (basis for a risk management tool and address policy needs in the area of food contact materials): i) Active packaging technologies based on natural antimicrobials ii) Intelligent packaging technologies based on monitoring of quality indicating metabolites iii) Combination of both antimicrobial and intelligent packaging technologies aimed to increase safety and quality of fresh food products during longer periods of time.