EFFICACY OF POLYETHYLENE LINERS IN MULTI-LAYER APPLE CARTONS: MATHEMATICAL MODELLING AND EXPERIMENTAL TESTING

Polyethylene liners (polyliners) have long been used by fruit industries as a component of their total packaging system in order to reduce excessive water loss.
Whilst these liners have been regarded as beneficial in increasing the localised relative humidity (RH), and therefore reducing water loss, in some cases they have impacted on the temperature management of the fruit (as fruit are often packed in lined cartons at ambient temperature). While researching alternative packaging technologies that allow product cooling whilst preventing excessive water loss, close examination of the polylined package was undertaken.
This revealed that while the mean weight loss for the product in the polylined carton was lower than both the ‘unlined’ and ‘PET-laminated’ cartons, a gradient through the trays within each box existed.
This gradient suggests that in some trays of a carton, there is little benefit in polyliner usage.

This paper presents experimental data to support these findings along with mathematical model predictions using a zone-based methodology.

II International Symposium on Application of Modelling as an Innovative Technology in the Agri-Food Chain; MODEL-IT

D.J. Tanner

Packaging; Mass transfer; Mathematical modelling; Product weight loss;

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2001.566.31