What are the test items for food packaging materials?

The quality and safety of food directly affects the health of the people. As an important part of food, packaging plays an important role in the quality protection of products after they leave the factory. Especially with the promulgation of the Food Safety Law, the food industry no longer only pays attention to food safety, food packaging safety is equally important. HORIZON summarized the food packaging testing equipments based on existing relevant regulations, and briefly introduced the corresponding testing instruments.

Barrier performance:

Barrier performance refers to the barrier effect of packaging materials on permeates such as gas and liquid. Barrier performance testing includes gas (oxygen, nitrogen,carbon dioxide, etc.) and water vapor permeability testing. Barrier performance is an important factor that affects the quality of the product during the shelf life, and it is also an important reference for analyzing the shelf life. This test can solve the problems of oxidative deterioration, damp and mildew caused by sensitivity to oxygen or water vapor.

At present, the gas barrier performance testing equipment commonly used in the industry is mainly divided into two testing principles-differential pressure method and equal pressure method. HORIZON’s differential pressure gas permeation instrument meets the GB 1038 test standard, and can be used for the determination of gas permeability, solubility coefficient, diffusion coefficient, and permeability coefficient of various films, composite films and other flexible plastic packaging materials; The oxygen transmission rate tester adopts the test principle of equal pressure method and meets GB/T 19789, ASTM D3985 and other test standards. It can be professionally used to determine the oxygen transmission rate of various food packaging materials and packaging containers.

Differential pressure gas permeability tester

Oxygen transmission rate tester

The water vapor barrier performance of food packaging materials or containers is tested with moisture vapor permeability meter equipment. The common test principles are the cup method and the sensor method. Among them, the equipment of the sensor method principle includes three types: electric sensor method, infrared sensor method and humidity sensor method.

Mechanical properties: 

The mechanical properties are the basic indicators to measure the protection of the contents of the packaging during the production, transportation, shelf display, and use of food, and generally include: Tensile strength and elongation, composite film peel strength, heat seal strength, puncture resistance, heat shrinkage, impact resistance, tear resistance, rubbing resistance, pressure resistance and other indicators.

In addition, it also evaluates the coefficient of friction performance of the inner and outer sides of the packaging material, the thickness performance of the packaging material, the sealing performance of the packaging bag, the cap locking and opening torque performance of the bottle packaging, and the retort resistance of the packaging bag.

HORIZON is committed to solving packaging quality problems for customers through packaging inspection technology and services, and assisting the quality and safety of packaging related industries.