Tag: food packaging

Guest Post: Packaging Food– Production, Inventory, Training

Prof. Howard Weiss raises an interesting issue that can save consumers and companies money.

Most discussions of OM focus on creating products and services. However, Chapter 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson textbook reminds us that product design also includes developing packaging to prevent damage and ensure safety.  One packaging issue that is important is the date labels found on food products. 

A report on food waste found that more than 50 different date labels are used on packaged foods sold in the U.S. The types of labels can be classified as

Label Type Example
Quality Best By
Safety-Oriented Discard After
Production and Packaging Pack Date
Storage and Handling Freeze By
Freshness-Focused Fresh Until
Retail and Inventory Last Date of Sale
Specialty Product Harvest Date

 

The use of these labels is largely unregulated. With the exception of infant formula, federal law does not require manufacturers to place date labels on food products. Further, manufacturers are generally free to choose whichever terminology they prefer. This lack of consistency often leads consumers to discard perfectly safe food, increasing household costs and contributing to unnecessary food waste.

Recognizing this problem, California became the first state to standardize food date labeling with a law that just went into effect and applies to all food products sold within the state. Products sold outside the state are exempt. The law is aimed at reducing food waste and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

The expected benefits are substantial. Standardized labels should reduce consumer confusion, preventing the premature disposal of safe food and eliminating an estimated 70,000 tons of food waste annually in California. Consumers and retailers should also realize significant economic savings through reduced waste, while fewer discarded food products will lower methane emissions from landfills and benefit the environment.

These regulations have important implications for manufacturers, processors, and retailers. Companies selling products in California must comply with the new requirements by requiring packaging redesigns that use only the standardized “Best If Used By” and “Use By” labels and prohibiting “sell by” dates. Employees will require training and must also be able to explain the new system accurately to customers. Finally, inventory management systems and stock rotation procedures must be updated to ensure products are handled according to the new labeling standards. 

Classroom Discussion Questions

  1. How can you tell if food is safe after its “Use or freeze by” date? 
  2. Does your state have laws regarding packaging labels?

OM in the News: Nestlé Tries to Tackle Big Food’s Plastic Problem

Nestle just pledged to cut its use of plastic made from fossil fuels by 1/3 in 5 years and said it would invest $2 billion to find more recycled material, a particularly big challenge for the food industry. Sellers of everything from soap to soft drinks are under pressure from consumers and regulators to use less fossil-fuel-based plastic, as well as prevent plastic trash ending up in the ocean. In response, some big consumer-goods firms, like P&G and Unilever, have rushed to promise reductions in plastic, saying they will switch to recycled material, use refillable containers or scrap packaging entirely.

But changing to recycled plastic is especially challenging for companies that need high-quality material that is safe for direct contact with food, writes The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 16, 2020). Recycling the packaging typically used for coffee, instant noodles or candy bars is difficult and expensive because it is often made from multiple types of material, like plastic melded with aluminum or paper. Sellers of fresh food also rely on plastic film—used to wrap cucumber and broccoli—and thin plastic bags for loose items, that often can’t be recycled.

Even when plastic is technically recyclable, it often isn’t collected and recycled. That is partly because, until recently, there has been little demand for recycled plastic, so even highly recyclable plastic—like drinks bottles—leak into the environment. Nestlé’s target of reducing the 1.67 million tons of plastic it uses is a challenge. Just 2% of its plastic packaging is currently made from recycled material.

To date, there is almost no market for the hard-to-recycle material often used in food packaging. Recycling efforts are being further challenged by China’s ban on scrap imports. For decades, the country took many of the world’s recyclables and turned them into new products. Its absence from the market has hit demand and raised costs for municipalities, propelling some to scrap their recycling programs entirely. This important topic is discussed in detail in Supp. 5 in your text, Sustainability in the Supply Chain.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why has China reversed its position vis a vis importing plastics?
  2.  What suggestions do students have for dealing with this serious issue?

OM in the News: Getting Mac and Cheese to Mars

WSU’s mac and cheese

Washington State University scientists have developed a way to triple the shelf life of ready-to-eat macaroni and cheese, a development that could have benefits for everything from space travel to military use. If human beings go to Mars, they need food. Food that won’t spoil during the long travel between planets, and while they’re on the surface.

Currently, plastic packaging can keep food safe at room temperature for up to 12 months. The WSU researchers demonstrated they could keep ready-to-eat macaroni and cheese safe and edible with selected nutrients for up to 3 years. “We need a better barrier to keep oxygen away from the food and provide longer shelf-life similar to aluminum foil and plastic laminate pouches,” said the research team in WSU Insider (Sept. 24, 2019). “We’ve always been thinking of developing a product that can go to Mars, but with technology that can also benefit consumers here on Earth.”

In addition to having space travel in mind, the researchers are working closely with the U.S. Army, who want to improve their “Meals Ready to Eat” (MREs) to stay tasty and healthy for 3 years. In taste panels conducted by the Army, the mac and cheese, recently tested after 3 years of storage, was deemed just as good as the previous version that was stored for 9 months. NASA will require storage of up to 5 years for food, so that’s what the team is working on now. They are currently aging other recipes that will be taste tested once they reach the 5-year mark. When humans are involved and they travel over great distances spanning long periods of time, the supply and transport of fresh nourishment can present a significant challenge.

The food itself is sterilized using a process called the microwave-assisted thermal sterilization (MATS) system. Adding a metal oxide coating to a layer of the plastic film significantly increases the amount of time it takes for oxygen and other gases to break through.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What other OM applications could benefit from such technologies?
  2. What additional logistics challenges will need to be solved before humans can embark on a trip to Mars?