Food safety is a big issue related to national economy and people’s livelihood, and packaging is closely related to it, and its importance is also beyond doubt. The expansion of the packaging market has been driven by the demand for packaged foods, which has increased with the growth of the urban population and the rapid development of the retail infrastructure.

According to a market research institute report, the global food packaging market will grow at a compound annual rate of 5.6% to $606.3 billion by 2026. At the same time, packaging industry also presents a new development
trend.

Packaging materials tend to be green

Customers have higher and higher requirements on food and its packaging. There are stricter regulations on food from packaging materials to packaging methods, from environmental requirements to labeling treatment. Therefore, the industry must pay attention to and vigorously develop food packaging machinery in line with the safety and health requirements. In the production process of modern food industry, food packaging is a very important link. Food packing can protect the food, so that the food in the circulation process is not affected by external factors, to ensure the quality of food itself stable.

At present, China’s food packaging is mainly metal packaging, plastic packaging, paper packaging and glass packaging four types. Due to the increasing awareness of consumer environmental protection, the paper packaging market continues to expand.

According to statistics, by the end of 2019, there are about 2,350 enterprises above the scale in China’s paper and paperboard container industry, and the concentration ratio of paper products packaging industry is about 4.40%. There is still much room for improvement in the future.

In the last two years, the domestic food paper packaging industry is accelerating the integration, small enterprises are gradually eliminated, and large enterprises through mergers, acquisitions and other ways to obtain more market share.

In addition to paper packaging, some new packaging materials for recycling waste are also being developed.

An Israeli technology company has successfully developed a natural, environmentally friendly material that uses bagasse as a substitute for crystalline polyethylene terephthalate (C-PET) plastic to make instant food packaging boxes. A southern California company is also studying how to make biodegradable food packaging from bagasse (sugarcane fibre), bamboo, wheat, straw and other organic fibres.

Packaging technology tends to be automated

In addition to packaging materials, packaging equipment is also an important part of food packaging. At present, the domestic food market in a variety of packaging forms, including boxes, bags, prefabricated bags, membrane type, and so on, the need for packaging equipment is not the same.

Although the research and development of packaging equipment started slowly, after several years of development, packaging equipment manufacturing has made great progress.

It is reported that the current domestic food packaging equipment mainly vacuum packaging machinery, air adjustment packaging machinery, pillow type packaging machinery, film type packaging machinery, vertical packaging machinery, can meet the needs of all kinds of food packaging.

However, it should also be noted that although the domestic food packaging technology has developed rapidly, compared with foreign countries, there are still large gaps, such as less application of automatic control technology, low product level, more repetition, low technical content, low processing precision requirements.

With the constant change of market demand, food packaging machinery is developing towards high-speed, multi-functional and intelligent direction.

In order to meet the delivery time requirements and reduce the processing and circulation costs, higher requirements were put forward for the production speed of food packaging machinery in the future.

For some products, it is also required that the packaging machinery be connected with the production machinery. Continuous operation or multi-station operation can also be adopted.

In addition, to reduce the rejection rate and failure rate, so that the normal production efficiency is improved, the future direction of development is to make packaging machinery more intelligent.

Modern people pursue the rich taste of food, and food production tends to be multi-variety and small batch production. Accordingly, with a variety of switching functions of the packaging machine, can be adapted to a variety of packaging materials and mold replacement, to meet the needs of the market. In order to make packaging machinery more flexible and improve the level of automation, microcomputer technology, modular technology and a single combination of forms is essential.

The quality of food packaging is directly related to the “bite of safety” of millions of people. Therefore, food packaging occupies a pivotal position in the food industry.

In recent years, with the change of the concept of social development, food packaging materials is tend to be green and environmental protection. In order to adapt to the constantly improving production requirements, special equipment for food packaging is also developing towards high dynamic precision and high automation.