Decreasing barrier while maintaining shelf-life for highly sensitive products - A more recyclable and sustainable packaging for infant formula

Abstract: With increasing concerns about environmental impacts of the food that is consumed, so is also the concern about packaging materials. This also comprises the packaging that is currently used to pack infant formula (IF), very often containing aluminum as the barrier material. IF is a very sensitive product that demands for the highest barriers to protect it from lipid oxidation. This implies that the barrier material has to be able to prevent O2 and moisture, as well as light from entering the package. In this study it was investigated whether one or more of five tested materials is/are able to replace the aluminum package and guarantee the same shelf-life of the product. A combination of accelerated shelf-life testing and the TBARS assay were used to determine the amount of malondialdehyde (MDA) produced during lipid oxidation in the samples stored in the different packaging materials. The results showed that there was no significant increase in oxidation in any of the materials (based on linear regression). No conclusions could be drawn regarding which of the materials could be an alternative to the aluminum-based one. However, a decreasing O2 trend was visible in the package filled with ambient O2. This can be taken as an indication that the powder did consume oxygen during the time of the study.