ABSTRACT

Since its starting in the nineteenth century with the invention of canning, modern food packaging has made great advances as a result of global trends, technological improvements, and consumer preferences. The importance of canning as a food preservation and containment method was soon recognized and still is. In 1937, Prescott and Proctor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology1 described the importance of canning as follows: No technologic advance has exerted greater inuence on the food habits of the civilized world than the development of heat treatment and the use of hermetically sealed (air-tight closure) containers for the preservation of food. In 2011, John D. Floros, head of the Food Science Department at Penn University, stated that the invention of the can and canning has truly helped society resolve major issues of hunger and diseases connected directly to lack of food or nutrients.2