DEVELOPMENT OF PACKAGING MATERIALS (FLEXIBLE PACKAGING) FOR CASSAVA FLOUR, GARRI AND FUFU
Packaging is the answer to the world hunger. More packaging and the right sort of packaging can help to curb world hunger. The main objective of this work is to develop flexible packaging that will adequately address the urgent packaging needs of the Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs). Investigations were conducted into methods of developing packaging film like hot-melt technology from intermediate thermoplastic materials. The results obtained from the characterization of the properties of the packaging films [polyethylene, bi-axially oriented polypropylene (gloss and non-gloss)] showed that the mean values for the properties of the packaging materials used for this study are, thickness (0.08-1.43) mm, stress at break (8.16-56.38 N/mm2) elongation at break (9.22-18.44 mm), force at break (1.00-101.60 N), stress at peak 0.29-51.31 N/mm2), elongation at peak (9.18-9.52 mm), force at peak (29.18-111.36 N). Moisture content of the food samples in the different packaging materials gave a value between the ranges of 12.6-16.9%. The microbial load also gave a value between 0.2 x 103 and 3.3 x 103 cfu/g and absence of Salmonella shigella is an indication of no organism of faecal origin in the samples. The results obtained indicate that biaxial-oriented polypropylene (gloss) is the best of the three materials studied for the packaging of food products used for this work.