This is the goal of EMAC, a project that has been co-certified by three competitive clusters (Vitagora, Plastipolis and Industries et Agro-Ressources) and retained by the Sixth Call for projects of the Fonds Unique Interministériel (FUI, government agency funding industrial R&D projects). Sponsored by dairy group Lactalis, the project (with a 5.5 million-euro budget) has marshaled two delicatessen industry operators, Chazal and Salaisons Dijonnaises, companies such as AFT Plasturgie, Plastilax (Lacroix group), and Wipack, as well as several research facilities.* "The project grew out of an observation made by engineers at AFT Plasturgie, a Dijon based small business working on compounds," they said at Lactalis. Actually, they discovered that agriculture-based compounds (from hemp in this case) incorporated into plastics (mainly for the automotive industry) have sorption-desorption properties. Actually a CRITT 2ABI feasibility study confirmed the observation.
The three-year EMAC project should be getting off the ground officially in early 2009. Eventually, it should lead to the development of active packaging for the improved preservation of the sensory qualities of products, and not only dairy products, but cold cuts as well, over longer periods. For instance, numerous traditional cheeses are still sold "by the slice" in superstores, a practice that has dropped sharply over the past years. Of course, there are "fresh-packed" products that use plastic film. However, their quality does not guarantee the sensory features of the product for more than a few days.
Thanks to the EMAC project, industry operators will perhaps manage to ensure preservation for up to twenty days for this type of product, one day. "You must realize that there are business and logistic networks that can organize so as to distribute the products widely throughout the country or even abroad," they explained at Lactalis. It is easy to see why the project is important, especially since global competition on the packaging market is very tough. For instance, in the United States numerous teams are already working on the design of biodegradable packaging, an area that EMAC partners are willing to tackle even if they have decided to focus on packaging functionality.
* Glucide Enhancement Center (Dury), Engineering Science Research Group - Laboratory for the Study of Polymer Materials for Packaging (GRESPI/LEMPE) at ESIEC (Reims), CRITT 2ABI (Dijon) and ENSBANA (Dijon University).
