Transforming Food Packaging Industry with Modern Biotechnology

Biotechnology becomes a development hotspot

Biotechnology has become a hot topic for people to study. The same application of biotechnology in related fields has also become a research hotspot in applied technology.

All countries in the world regard biotechnology as a high technology. Research shows that biotechnology has become a key technology for solving global economic problems. Biotechnology is widely used in medicine and health, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, light industry, food, chemical and energy. The promotion of technological innovation and the formation of emerging industries in traditional industries will have a far-reaching and revolutionary impact on human social life. Therefore, biotechnology will become the core content of high technology in the new century.

With the development of the modern food industry and changes in people's lives and production patterns, it is difficult to meet people's requirements for packaging with existing packaging technologies. There have been many experts who have called for the use of biotechnology to transform our food industry and packaging industry. In fact, what biotechnology experts talk about refers to modern biotechnology.

Biotechnology includes traditional biotechnology and modern biotechnology. Traditional biotechnology refers to the existing traditional techniques for making sauce, vinegar, wine, bread, cheese, yoghurt, and other foods; and modern biotechnology refers to emerging disciplines based on modern biological research results and with genetic engineering as the core. Current scholars talk about biotechnology that refers to modern biotechnology. Modern biotechnology mainly includes: genetic engineering, cell engineering, enzyme engineering, fermentation engineering, and protein engineering. Of the five projects, the most promising for food packaging may be enzyme engineering.

Bio-enzymes are a catalyst. It can be used for food packaging to produce special protection. Studies have shown that foods (including many fresh foods and agricultural and sideline products) are spoiled due to the action of biological enzymes. The use of modern biotechnology in food packaging is "enzymatic enzyme, enzyme attack enzyme" and achieve its packaging role.

Biozymes are widely used in food packaging

The application of biological enzymes for food packaging is mainly to create an environment conducive to food shelf life. It mainly uses different enzymes according to the enzymes and types contained in different foods, so that the foods containing enzymes that are not conducive to food quality are inhibited or the reaction speed is reduced, and the shelf life of foods is eventually extended. Studies have shown that there are many types of biological enzymes that can be used in food packaging. The following are the applications of two biological enzymes in food packaging.

Glucose oxidase packaging applications. Glucose oxidase has a variety of effects on food, as the biggest role in food preservation and packaging is to remove oxygen, extend its food preservation period. The stability of color, aroma, and taste should be maintained during the storage and preservation of foods. This is an important technical issue for the food industry. In addition to spoilage of microorganisms, one of the most widespread metamorphic factors is oxidation.

The presence of oxygen in many foods, especially fresh foods, during their preservation or processing has greatly affected their preservation. Oxygen not only produces odor and odor of aldehydes and keto acids in fatty foods such as peanuts, milk powder, fried foods, etc. Oxidation changes other foods to varying degrees, such as the discoloration of strawberry jam; the browning of meat under fluorescent light; the bleaching of peeled potatoes; the contact between natural cheese and oxygen, easy to grow mildew, etc. In short, oxygen is used in both food processing and food storage. It is unfavorable.

Deoxygenation is a necessary means of food preservation. Many of the oxygen-removing methods are not effective. From the standpoint of the characteristics of antioxidants, the use of glucose oxidase to remove oxygen is an ideal method. Glucose oxidase has an ideal antioxidant effect on oxygen. For oxidative metamorphism that has occurred, it can prevent further development, or it can prevent it from occurring if it is not degraded. Abroad has been used in a variety of ways for tea, ice cream, milk powder, canned products and other oxygen packaging. And designed a variety of tablets, coatings, oxygen bags and so on for different products in the oxygen.

Cell wall lytic enzyme packaging applications. The most prominent feature of cell wall lytic enzymes is the elimination of the proliferation of certain microorganisms, allowing certain beneficial bacteria to multiply. More used as a preservative on food packaging. For example, egg white lysozyme in a cell wall lysing enzyme is used as a chemical preservative instead of harmful human health, and the food is stored fresh.

Lysozyme is also used for sake preservation. Sake contains 15% to 17% alcohol, 3% to 4% nitrogen-free extracts, and organic acids. Most of the microorganisms cannot grow in sake and may grow a lactic acid bacterium called fire bacillus which causes acid production and odor. Therefore, salicylic acid acts as a preservative, but salicylic acid damages the stomach and liver. After 1970, the antiseptic effect of 15ppm lysozyme was found to be equal to that of 250ppm salicylic acid, so it was a good preservative.

Lysozyme is added to milk to emulsify milk. Human milk contains a large amount of lysozyme (40,00 μg/100 ml), but very little in milk (only 13 mg/100 ml). The addition of lysozyme to milk powder is beneficial for the normalization of infant intestinal bacteria. Europe has sold milk powder with lysozyme added. Since lysozyme is stable in solutions containing salt, sugar, and the like, it has excellent acid resistance and heat resistance and is therefore very suitable for the preservation of various foods. If it is used in the production of cheese to prevent the fermentation of butyric acid, it can be used in aquatic products, sausages, butter, raw noodles and other foods to extend the preservation period.

The egg white lysozyme is ineffective or less effective against gram-negative bacteria, so sometimes the gram-negative bacteria will multiply due to the proliferation of gram-negative bacteria. If lysozyme is used together with a certain amino acid, bacteriolytic activity against gram-negative bacteria can be significantly increased due to the synergistic effect.

Egg white lysozyme is a non-toxic protein that selectively dissolves the cell wall of a subject's microorganism, but does not respond to other substances. Therefore, people have studied the use of these enzymes instead of harmful chemical preservatives to preserve food.

Applied biotechnology trends deeper

Food packaging With the reform of consumer attitudes, many new problems have emerged. For example, people have shifted from the protection of the visual, tactual, and taste requirements of food packaging to the nutrition of quality, eliminating invisible or potential pollution and hazards. Requirements, making packaging materials and packaging technology to achieve environmental protection against packaging pollution and eliminate packaging in the food potential pollution and qualitative change.

The future of food packaging application biotechnology will appear the following trends:

The use of biotechnologies (such as bio-enzymatic engineering) directly in the pre-treatment of food packaging or as an auxiliary agent for packaging enables foods to achieve good preservation and durability after packaging; and biotechnology is used to manufacture packaging materials with special functions, such as Adding biological enzymes to the packaging paper and packaging film makes it resistant to oxidation, bactericidal, and delaying the reaction rate of enzymes in foods. It is also possible to assign a variety of biological enzymes and related ingredients into anti-mildew, anti-oxidation and other food preservatives. It can be used alone or mixed in food packaging containers to extend the shelf life of foods; when food (material) is cultivated, the introduction of biological genetic engineering will lead to the emergence of strong antioxidant fruits and vegetables, so as to greatly simplify the packaging technology and process. Has a better shelf life effect; the use of biotechnology to transform the effect of food packaging, there will be a new theory, that is, biotechnology packaging principles, which promote the application of biotechnology in food packaging; as a biotechnology in food packaging Application, bio-enzymatic engineering will be the first to perform. Because the production of enzyme preparations is the safest for food packaging and people, it has been confirmed by science. Therefore, bio-enzymatic technology will play a pioneering role in food packaging; the application of bio-enzymes in food packaging will also have dual effects on the preservation and self-processing of certain foods, which is also a future application hotspot.