Long experience in all aspects of food safety
Tetra Pak has extensive experience in working on food safety and has developed many capabilities in this area. From a broad range of cutting-edge processing and packaging technologies to state-of-the-art food safety laboratories in Stuttgart, Germany, we continue to prioritise our vision: to make food safe and available everywhere.
In 1961, the first ever aseptic filling machine was launched. This technology would revolutionise the food production industry and establish Tetra Pak as a leading player in the ongoing quest for solutions and innovations that would help safeguard food.
Half a century later we can look back on many more food safety milestones and innovations, and the technology that first set them apart, aseptic food production, continues to lie at the very core of our business, and remains the focus of much development and improvement.
“For example, eBeam is arguably the biggest innovation in food packaging technology since the Tetra Brik® Aseptic carton,” says Par Bertilsson, Director Aseptic & Filling Solutions – D&T Equipment Engineering. “This technology uses electron beams to sterilise packaging, and offers several significant advantages over alternatives like hydrogen peroxide, including faster throughput which enables high speed production, and reduced operational costs.”
Of course, every piece of processing and packaging equipment is designed with safety in mind, with all components and materials food contact certified. Indeed, in the case of highly sensitive products such as baby foods, production solutions are close to pharmaceutical standards, with barriers and controlled hygienic zones to guarantee process integrity.
World-class labs in Germany
Underpinning Tetra Pak’s food safety agenda is a small, world-class food science laboratory in Stuttgart, Germany.
“At these labs, exhaustive tests are performed on the many materials used in various types of packaging and equipment to ensure safe and suitable packages for the very broad range of foods they might be used for,” says Dr Davide Marchesi, Director, Food Packaging Safety and Interaction. The findings can help food producers avoid unsuitable combinations.
The lab also carries out extensive Food, Microbiology and Microscopy testing, for example, as part of the analysis offered to Tetra Pak’s customers in the event of a food safety issue.
This goes beyond providing fast and reliable support. After the analysis, we make recommendations for improvements to the food producer’s quality control and quality assurance programmes. This advice, along with a competence development programme to help improve staff awareness, can minimise or eliminate the risk of similar issues reoccurring in the future.
Collaboration with universities and authorities
To stay at the forefront of food safety development, the laboratories collaborate and exchange knowledge with leading universities as well as industry and academia consortiums, gaining insight into the very latest research. The labs also collaborate with various European and global health organisations and authorities, including the ILSI (International Life Sciences Institute), ACE (The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment), FPE (Flexible Packaging Europe), and BfR (German Federal Institute for Risk Assesment). This is not merely to keep up with legislation, but to present findings from practical experience to the authorities, which can influence how that legislation is formulated and implemented.
“By staying on top of what’s happening today, we can help our customers meet the demands of tomorrow,” concludes Davide Marchesi.
