Ludhiana- With aim to provide exposure of global best practices in packaging, Central Institute of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET), inaugurated the 14-day NAIP sponsored National training on ‘Smart Packaging Techniques for Shelf Life Enhancement and Retention of Bioactive Compounds in Food’ here at its campus. Around sixteen scientists from across country are taking part in the training programme and expert from United States would also be delivering lectures.
“The training programme is a part of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) strategy to multiply learning and capacity building by using small pool of scientists, who were recently trained in the state of the art laboratories around the globe in packaging techniques, to further train the scientists in India to develop human resource and create larger pool of trained researchers for brining best practices in domestic industry,” this was revealed by Dr Deepak Raj Rai, Head Transfer of Technology Division, who was also course director of the training programme.
Advocating for the use of smart packaging, Dr Rai said that food packaging technologies could help lot in extending shelf-life and maintaining freshness of the products. Dr B.S Ghuman, Director, Punjab Horticulture Post Harvest Technology Center (PHPTC), said that without use of smart packaging potential of the emerging processed food market could not be tapped. Smart packaging techniques could also help in bringing down post harvest losses and extension of shelf life, he stressed.
Dr P.R Bhatnagar, who was officiating as Director CIPHET, said that the institute had developed number of technologies for increasing shelf life of fruits and vegetables. He hoped country would eventually benefit from the pool of scientists learning best practices available around the globe in smart packaging at CIPHET. Dr Sangeeta Chopra, Senior Scientist, coordinated the inaugural session. Dr S.N Jha, Head AS&EC Division and other senior members of the faculty were also present on the occasion.
The 14-day training programme would be focused on food packaging concepts, controlled atmosphere technology, storage structures for perishables, micro-perforation mediated improvement of package environment, need and techniques, need and techniques to establish suitable space, packaging of preshiables, using bio-based appropriate plastics in food packaging, antimicrobial active packaging of food, antioxidant active packaging of food, metallic oriented framework and permeability of thermo plastic polymers etc.
