Much of the food that we consume today is put in a wide variety of packages to ensure food quality and provide a possibility for transportation and distribution. Many of these packages are air or gas tight, making it difficult to study the gas composition without perforation. In many cases it is of great value to study the composition of gases without destroying the package.
The perhaps best example is studies of the amount of oxygen in food packages. Oxygen is naturally present in most food and food packages as it is a major component in air. However, oxygen is also one of the great causes or needs for aging of biological substances, due to its source for increase of chemical and microbiological activity. Today, methods like [Modified atmosphere] (MAP) and [Controlled atmosphere] packaging (CAP) are implemented to reduce and control the oxygen content in food packages to prolong [shelf life] and ensure safe food. To assure the effectiveness of these methods it is important to regularly measure the concentration of oxygen (and other gases) inside these packages. GASMAS provides the possibility of doing this non-intrusively, without destroying any food or packages. The two main advantages of measuring the gas-composition in packages without perforation is that no food is wasted in the controlling process and that the same package can be controlled repeatedly during an extended time period to monitor any time-dependence of the gas composition. The studies can be used to guarantee the tightness of packages but also to study food deterioration processes.
Much food itself contains free gas distributed in pores within. Examples are fruit, bread, flour, beans, cheese, etc. Also this gas can be of great value to study to monitor quality and maturity level (see e.g. and ).