For years, industrial gases have been used in the food industry. Gases such as nitrogen and carbon dioxide have been traditionally used in almost every part of the food industry supply chain – from preservation to packaging. Recently, the use of these important gases has been a crucial factor in how food can be cryogenically frozen to meet ever higher consumer standards around the quality of their foodstuffs at the point of purchase.
Oxygen is increasingly looked at as the world adapts to climate change and new regulatory standards that seek to limit the impact of greenhouse gases used in almost every industry. It goes without saying that the food industry has had to adapt to changes, and, in turn, industrial gas suppliers and the technology they develop has had to offer environmentally safer alternatives to traditional products. Whilst environmental factors contribute to technology development and the use of industrial gases in the food industry, the main drivers are efficiency, lower costs for producers, and the overall quality of the food product at the point of sale. This comes down to one more factor itself – improving the shelf life of food products.
Oxidative degradation is the process(es) whereby the levels of oxygen (inside a food package, for example) contribute to the degradation of the food item. Preserving food against this is essential to food quality, which in turn is essential to customer acceptability and, more generally, the safety of the food product (whether or not it is safe for the customer to eat). A lot of discussion around oxygen use is related to limiting the amount of oxygen inside the packaged food item. The primary means of controlling oxygen levels has been to use oxygen absorbers.
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