New oxygen test for longer shelf life

Easier, safer and quicker food packaging will result from a new oxygen measuring system, claims Swedish manufacturer PBI-Dansensor.

Easier, safer and quicker food packaging will result from a new oxygen measuring system, claims Swedish manufacturer PBI-Dansensor.

PermMate is a new measuring system that analyses the volume of oxygen in all types of sealed packaging, Peter Franklen, the company’s development manager told FoodProductionDaily.com.

Current sample tests take time and have a large margin of uncertainty because the measurements are taken only in a small portion of the package, said Franklen. “The new measuring system streamlines and modernizes the way the volume of air in a package is analyzed. PerMate measures the whole package and reports more quickly and more reliably than current sample test methods,” he added.

Bacteria Free

Oxygen tests within food packages are an important means of ensuring that products remain bacteria free when consumers collect them from supermarket chillers. Testing the permeability of oxygen into the packaging ensures products are labelled with the correct shelf life.

“Permate allows (processing and packaging) companies to optimize their work processes, cost prices and reduce packaging waste,” said Franklen.

The system, consisting of a two measuring instruments and a PC application, was developed in association with Swedish IT company HiQ. The oxygen analyzer is called Checkmate 11 and works with the PermMate device via PC software.