Beyond 'Best Before': Packaging Gets Smart

SMART packaging ought to be a big talking point for food manufacturers. With built-in freshness watchdogs, the latest packages are not only stronger despite less material but they also permit efficient handling – integrated time-temperature indicators and microchips constantly indicate the product's state of quality. Active systems are even capable of improving the quality of the contents during storage.

When it comes to "Güggeli", the Swiss are not willing to make any compromises about their much-loved grilled chicken. Unless the chickens are reared in humane conditions, subjected to regular health checks and are absolutely fresh, they don't make it to the table. The Ernst Kneuss Geflügel poultry company in Switzerland has therefore come up with something original for the fastidious Swiss. On the cardboard boxes of its "Bachofe-Güggeli" grilling chickens, the company prints an OnVu label, a time-temperature indicator that accompanies the chickens on their journey to the shops. Special pigmented ink in the interior of an apple symbol is irradiated with UV light during packaging and turns blue. From then on, the colour gradually fades in relation to time and temperature. The longer a package of the grilled chicken is stored in a warm place, the faster the colour changes. When the colour in the apple becomes paler than the surrounding reference colour, the consumer knows that it's better not to eat the chicken.

"By enabling our customers to check the freshness and quality of our products, our labels underline our quality philosophy," explains Kneuss CEO Daniel Kneuss. The poultry producer introduced the OnVu label in 2008, and other companies now aim to follow its lead.

"We're negotiating with fast-food and retail chains worldwide," says Martin Angehrn, in charge of OnVu at BASF. In 2008, the German chemical corporation purchased the Swiss paint specialist Ciba that had developed the indicator together with the German machine manufacturer Bizerba.

'Best before' not enough

To assure customers of absolute product safety, the entire logistics chain has to be monitored from production through to the consumer. This applies particularly to perishable foods and to pharmaceutical products. Experience has shown repeatedly that spoilt foods and medicines pose a huge risk. So far consumers had only had the "best before" date to go by, a date that indicates how long a product can be used without loss of quality if correctly stored. The problem is that in the event of breaks in the cooling chain or of moisture penetration, the product spoils prematurely and may put the consumer's health at risk. On the other hand, foods are often still fresh beyond the "best before" date, but are thrown away for safety's sake – an unnecessary waste of resources. Time-temperature indicators show the precise degree of freshness and can prevent waste. "They thus also contribute to sustainability," says Mr Angehrn.

Because more and more consumers are attaching importance to healthy and green products with added value, experts anticipate strong growth in the smart packaging market. The US market researcher MarketsandMarkets expects global turnover with smart packages to grow by 8.2 per cent annually to around USD 24,000 million from 2010 to 2015. Analysts see not only colour labels on the advance, but also radio frequency identification technology (RFID). Via sensors, microchips integrated in the packages constantly gather data on the product's condition such as moisture and temperature and issue an alarm when the values move outside the programmed upper and lower limits. Or there are chips that help patients take medicines in the correct dosage and punctually, emitting an audible signal indicating when it's time to take the medicine. However, theHighsnobiety Sneakers