"Commercial sterility" escorts canned food"

Canned food, which is convenient and delicious, has a long history in our country. Whether it is citrus, tuna, braised pork or noodles, consumers can find them in canned food. At the same time, with the development of technology and the innovation of processing technology, flexible packaging, long shelf life, self-heating... canned food has more and newer ways of "expression. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, in July 2022, my country exported 254236 tons of canned products, with an export value of US $619.33 million and an average unit price of US $2436/ton. Compared with the same period last year, the export volume increased by 14.8, the export value increased by 33.17, and the average price increased by 16% year-on-year.
 

Although the canned industry has made a series of achievements in the development, there are still consumers who wonder about the safety of canned food. Among them, "why is the shelf life of canned food so long" is the first to bear the brunt, followed by the discussion of product nutrition and health problems, what is the secret of the food sealed in canned food?
 

China Canned Industry Association Secretary-General Chao Xi introduced, canned food is not only placed in glass bottles and tinplate cans. The "National Food Safety Standard Canned Food" (GB 7098-2015) defines that canned food is made of fruits, vegetables, edible fungi, livestock and poultry meat, aquatic animals, etc., processed by processing, filling, sealing, and heating and sterilization. "Commercial aseptic" filled food. That is to say, in the products that can be stored at room temperature in the market, consumers commonly use tinplate, aluminum alloy, glass bottle packaging of various livestock and poultry meat, aquatic animals, fruits, vegetables, edible fungi, dried fruits and nuts, grains and beans, other categories (such as protein drinks, canned soup, instant canned bird's nest, etc.), as well as snack foods packaged in composite plastic bags or aluminum-plastic composite bags, such as a variety of flavors of dried tofu, sauce and marinated meat products, room temperature storage of ham sausage, tetra pak packaging of milk, etc. are canned food.
 

Canned food is so common, why do consumers doubt the safety of canned food?
 

Around the 1970 s, canned goods were once favored as luxury goods. In the past ten or twenty years, due to the abundant market supply and the improvement of people's living standards, canned food has faded out of people's sight. During this period, the vast majority of canned food companies are keen on foreign markets, and they are "heavy on the outside and light on the inside" in product positioning and sales. There is a vacuum in the domestic canned market, and consumers gradually have various misunderstandings about canned food, such as "not fresh" not nutritious "preservatives.
 

However, would you suspect that the milk packaged in Tepak contains pathogenic bacteria? The answer is obviously no.
 

In Chao Xi's view, the basic processing methods for filled foods are mostly raw and auxiliary materials that are processed and cooked and then put into packaging containers. Then most products are sealed under certain vacuum conditions (or filled with inert gas) to seal the packaging containers, and then the sealed products are sterilized. Of course, there are also some products such as milk packaged by tetra pak stored at normal temperature, it is filled and sealed in a sterile state after sterilization. In the actual production process, for the most heat-resistant pathogenic bacteria and their spores that may exist in the raw and auxiliary materials of the product, the manufacturer will take the physical properties and specifications of the canned product and its packaging materials, the initial temperature of the product before sterilization, the arrangement of the product in the sterilization container, the initial bacteria carrying amount of the product, etc. as the calculation basis of the sterilization method, and add appropriate insurance coefficient, and finally formulate the appropriate sterilization method, ensure that 100% of the product is free of pathogenic bacteria and non-pathogenic bacteria cannot grow and reproduce under normal temperature storage conditions, so that canned products can achieve "commercial sterility". After customized sterilization of canned food, as long as not open contact with the "new environment", its safety is "consistent".
 

Faced with the long shelf life of food, consumers always feel that various preservatives are added, but for canned food, under the "commercial aseptic" increase, there is no need for preservatives to "gild the lily".
 

The reporter noted that recently, Dalian market supervision and Administration Bureau issued a notice on the release of the results of special supervision and sampling inspection of food safety in warehouse supermarkets (No. 7 of 2022). Among them, 10 batches of canned samples were sampled, covering 4 production enterprises and 4 units that were sampled. No unqualified products were detected, and the qualified rate was 100. Sampling items include "commercial sterility" and other indicators.
 

Chao Xi said that "commercial aseptic" refers to the state in which canned food does not contain pathogenic microorganisms after moderate heat sterilization, nor does it contain non-pathogenic microorganisms that can reproduce in it at normal temperatures. Canned food usually has a long or very long shelf life is because there is no pathogenic bacteria in canned products, no non pathogenic bacteria that can grow and reproduce at room temperature, and good sealing can be isolated from external microorganisms into the product, trace oxygen also reduces the oxidation of food or containers, so as to achieve canned food at room temperature for a long time will not deteriorate. Therefore, most canned products do not need to add preservatives to solve the shelf life or shelf life of canned products, the shelf life or shelf life of products are based on packaging materials and processing technology to delineate. In general, the better the barrier properties of the packaging materials of canned products to light, oxygen and water vapor, the longer the shelf life, consumers can understand the relevant content by checking the list of ingredients on the food label.