Appropriate Food Packaging

Food manufacturers operating on a small to medium scale face direct competition from the large-scale food sector whose economies of scale, better presentation and powerful marketing can endanger the future of smaller businesses. High quality packaging not only helps to keep products in good condition it lies at the very heart of food presentation and customer appeal. It is thus an area of vital importance for any small to medium scale food manufacturer competing in today's marketplace.

"Appropriate Food Packaging" is a compendium of packaging materials and cost-effective methods that can be applied at a small to medium scale in developing countries. This book helps manufacturers to face the challenges that improving their packaging systems present, including assessing whether increased sales will justify the investment costs, and the very real difficulties faced in many developing countries of sourcing suitable packaging materials. The economic, operational and human resource implications of changes in packaging methods are considered, as too are the potentially negative environmental effects of modern food packaging.

Peter Fellows is a food technologist with over 20 years experience in small-scale food processing in Africa and Asia. He has been Senior Technical Manager with ITDG and Senior Lecturer at Oxford Polytechnic. He has also worked in the UK food industry. He obtained his Doctorate from Reading University, and his specialisms include fruit and vegetable processing, small food enterprise development and food packaging.

Barrie Axtell worked in the UK food industry for over 10 years, and then joined the British Overseas Development Program. He then spent 4 years in the Eastern Caribbean as an advisor in food processing, followed by 3 years in Guatemala teaching and developing small scale drying systems. In 1981, he joined ITDG to start its agroprocessing program and travelled extensively to developing projects in Asia and Latin America. His particular areas of interest are drying, packaging and fruit processing. After 10 years as Senior Technical Manager with ITDG he became a private consultant providing technical consultancy inputs to agencies such as FAO, ILO, UNIFEM and ITDG.