India’s largest global flexible packaging solution company, Uflex Limited has been working towards expanding the reach of its Flexfresh™ Liner Bags to improve product availability and offer better shelf-life extension solution for fresh produce.
One of the major Tropical Fruits is Papaya with exceptional nutritional benefits to the consumer. It is rich in carotenes, vitamin C, antioxidants, flavonoids and several other minerals. It lowers cholesterol, helps in weight loss, boosts immunity amongst several other health benefits.
More than 50% of the world’s Papaya is produced in Asia, followed by South America with around 20% of the production. USA is the largest importer of Papaya from South America with import volumes of around 200,000t per annum. India is the largest producer of Papaya in the world with almost 40% papaya produced, with a very high domestic consumption of the fruit.
Perfotec and Uflex have been working with fresh produce growers to maximise shelf-life using Active Modified Atmosphere Packaging (AMAP) solution. The solutions deliver the best quality produce to the markets with possibility of moving away from Air shipments and switching to Sea Shipments there by improving availability and also ensuring continuity in the supply chain making the product affordable for the consumers by cutting on expensive Air Freight simultaneously reducing the wastage.
Perfotec and Uflex jointly performed trials in India, as well as Holland with leading growers and importers to determine the possible shelf-life extension solution for Papaya.
Fast Respiration Meter from Perfotec was used to determine the Rate of Respiration under the supply chain temperature of 10°C and the transmission determined to maintain ideal oxygen and carbon dioxide inside the liner bags to maintain freshness and extend shelf-life.
N Siva Shankaran vice-president of Flexfresh™ at Uflex said: "Trials were conducted with 60*40 Flexfresh™ Liner Bags in open top corrugated boxes. Product was packed in semi ripe condition in warm condition in the liner bags and were hermetically closed and moved to the cold store.
"By using Flexfresh™ Liner Bags the product remains dry and registers a very low weight loss, due to the hydrated environment inside the bag. Flexfresh™ does not allow condensation due to its unique proprietary formulation giving a major relief to exporters against bacterial and fungal infections. With the biodegradability of the liner bag, it is a perfect sustainable solution."
Explaining the results, Mr Ashok Chaturvedi, chairman and managing director, Uflex Ltd, said that the major benefit of using the Flexfresh™ Liner bags is the possibility of having an elevated Carbon Dioxide level which prevented yellowing of the fruit and maintained firmness to the fruit quality. He added that growers could attain a shelf-life of 30 days for Papaya using the Flexfresh™ Liner Bags.
Terming this as an important milestone in shelf-life extension and market accessibility Mr Bas Groeneweg, director, Perfotec BV informed that with the health benefits of Papaya, Flexfresh™ Liner Bags will deliver good quality fruit around the year. With major health benefits of Papaya, we should see more imports in to Europe he added.
Perfotec and Uflex have been building a strong distribution network across the world to meet the needs of Flexfresh™ across Fresh Produce growing regions.
Visit Uflex and Perfotec at Asia Fruit Logistica, Hong Kong; 7-9 Sep 2016, Hall 3, Stall T-39.