Jakość opakowania jako determinanta bezpieczeństwa żywności w kontekście wymagań społecznych konsumentów

Abstract

Those consumption trends that relate to the quality of food products and packaging are closely linked with the relevant requirements expressed by consumers. Social requirements of consumers on packaging can be grouped into three basic fields: safety, extending product life through properly selecting packaging, consumer communication, convenience and functionality as well as reduction of negative environmental impacts. Safety is one of the basic human needs, which should also be covered by packaging. Safe packaging should be characterized primarily by an appropriate sanitary-hygienic condition, which does not pose a risk to a packaged food product, and, also, should ensure safe use thereof. In addition, the packaging must be characterized by stable performance parameters of a certain value since the protection of packaged products depends on them. The objective of the research study was to determine social requirements of consumers on the safety of packaged food because those requirements constitute a factor to significantly impact the quality of packaging. The presented research results refer to the analysis of needs and requirements on food packaging; they made it possible to determine the importance hierarchy of social requirements of consumers on food packaging. It was shown that 90 % of the consumers regarded safety as the most important social requirement for packaging. 75 % of the consumers rated safe use as very important. 83 % of the consumers deemed the following features as important: maintaining the quantity and quality of content during storage and use, protection against unwanted opening, and information contributing to user safety. Next, 60 % of the consumers claimed that middlingly important to them were safeguards to ensure that a food product was used for the first time and safety while handling food products. And 54 % of the respondents declared that, of all the analyzed packaging characteristics, the least important to them was a feature linked with the resistance of packaging to microclimatic, biotic and mechanical factors.