A significant role of food processing technology and packaging is to protect food from spoilage, aiming at reducing food waste and having high impact on the environment. An important effect of food degradation, mainly involving lipids, is auto-oxidation, which alters product’s stability, organoleptic properties, and nutritional value.
This process can be monitored by OXITEST, the VELP instrument based on accelerating fat oxidation at high temperature and oxygen pressure, and capable to evaluate oxidative stability of products without preliminary fat separation and pre-treatment.
For decades VELP has been collaborating with Professor Antonella Cavazza, from the University of Parma (Italy), in the study of innovative materials of natural origin and the evaluation of antioxidant activity.
OXITEST is able to provide high value-added information on the oxidation processes of fats in food and is particularly useful for testing which packaging maintains the product in the freshest condition.
In particular, since a new European Directive banned the single-use plastics by 2021, the development of new technologies and materials to be adopted to improve food products stability is mandatory.
New trends and innovative materials are fundamental for a sustainable context and support the Circular Economy project.