Something about potato chip packaging

[Chinese Packaging News] When we opened a bag of chips, the gas was all gone, leaving only a little bit of poor potato chips in the bottom of the bag, and it instantly felt like a blow. So, what is the volume of gas in the bagged potato chips? Intuition tells you at least more than half.

In order to figure out the specific figures, the artist Henry Hargreaves submerged the potato chip package under water, measured its volume by drainage, then vacuum sealed the contents of the bag and measured the volume, comparing the two. difference. The results of the experiment are astonishing. Gas accounts for 86%. The content of potato chips is only 14%, and even less than 1/6.

Of course, Hargreaves is more than angry with this. Two South Korean male youths tied a razor clam with 160 bags of potato chips, and successfully crossed the Han River near the Jamsil Bridge in Seoul. Nearly 200 people watched the event that was intended to protest the overpacking of producers.

In fact, the gas in the potato chips bag is not air but nitrogen. If the potato chips are exposed to oxygen for a long time, a large amount of fatty acids will be oxidized, giving off a taste of what is commonly known as the "halal taste". In addition, the moisture in the air will not only make the potato chips wet and soft, but also cause bacteria to breed. Therefore, the potato chips undergo a nitrogen flushing procedure during the packaging process. A study in 1994 also proved that doing so is more able to maintain a crisp and fresh taste.

In 2012, the British potato chip maker Volks announced a fries on Twitter. However, after the purchase, the customer found that there were only 5 chips in the large package. The manufacturer told the audience in the BBC program that nitrogen is necessary to protect the product during production and transportation. Nitrogen protection not only provides cushioning, it also allows foods to adapt to changes in air pressure.

However, this statement was once again hit by Hargreaves's potato chips experiment. His experimental results show that even in a package with sufficient gas, there will still be broken potato chips. In fact, as long as you think about it, you can think that the bulging potato chips we buy will still break a lot. Hargreaves said that when vacuum-packed potato chips, it is the most efficient transportation and processing, and will not break the potato chips.

He believes that these extra gases make transport inefficient, but also cause environmental pollution. For example, suppose there are 100 trucks filled with chips that are shipped, then 86 of them are not needed. This is a lot of carbon emissions! And we thought it was a good bargain filled with full-bodied potato chips, but it wasn't actually much better, and there were about 2/3 of the gas in a bucket of chips.

However, Hargreaves's experiment has not been published, nor has it been peer-reviewed, and the credibility of the conclusions of the relevant experiments still has to be questioned. If food science and technology are developed to the present day, if manufacturers can find other better and more cost-effective packaging methods, they have already done so – a company selling hot dogs just saves bags by a few centimeters and saves It costs millions of dollars a year.

After all, for them, lowering the cost of packaging and transportation is much higher than taking care of you. And if foods like potato chips are so tempting, as long as they accept this type of packaging, will consumers continue to purchase it? It was only a small disappointment at the moment of opening.