Uflex, one of India’s biggest manufacturers of plastic packing, said it successfully performed flexfresh liner bag trials to determine the possible shelf life extension for Papaya.
The trials were jointly performed with Perfotec — company which develops technology to extend the shelf life of fresh fruit and vegetables — in India as well as Holland with help from leading growers and importers.
Perfotec and Uflex have been working with fresh produce growers to maximize shelf life using active modified atmosphere packaging (AMAP) solution.
¨The major benefit of using the Flexfresh Liner bags is the possibility of having an elevated Carbon Dioxide level which prevents yellowing of the fruit and maintains firmness to the fruit quality,¨ said the chairman and managing director of Uflex ltd., Ashok Chaturvedi.
¨The growers could attain a shelf life of 30 Days for Papaya using the flexfresh Liner Bags¨, he added
The solutions enable the possibility of moving away from air shipments to sea shipments there by cutting costs and reducing wastage, said the company, whose clients include firms such as P&G, PepsiCo, L’Oreal, Britannia, Amul, Nestle and Coca Cola.
“Trials were conducted with flexfresh liner Bags in open top corrugated boxes. Product was packed semi ripe condition in warm condition inside 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 Bag, it is a perfect sustainable solution,” explained N. Siva Shankaran Vice President – Flexfresh at Uflex.
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 200,000 Tons annually. India is the largest producer of Papaya in the world with almost 40% papaya produced, with a very high domestic consumption of the fruit.
Uflex is an end-to-end flexible packaging company and has packaging facilities at multiple locations in India and has packaging film manufacturing facilities in India, UAE, Mexico, Egypt, Poland and USA with cumulative installed capacity in excess of 337,000 TPA.
