Food vs packaging: dynamics of oil migration from particle systems into fibrous material

Paper packaging for compacted or tabletted foods is seen as a key sustainable packaging of the future. Yet its fibrous structure is susceptible to absorb oils, fats, greases and other small molecules from the contacting food. Underlying phenomena associated with oil release from compacted food on fibre-based packaging, such as viscous liquid flow, capillarity, and gravity from compacted particle systems into fibre networks are not fully understood yet. As such, oil stain mitigation on packaging remains a challenge. Using model food tablets of 95% 500 and 50 μm particle size with 5% sunflower oil as the liquid phase, this work employed for the first-time quantitative Raman spectroscopic chemical imaging (RCI) coupled with automated image quantification for comparison of oil flow dynamics between food compacts and contacting paper packaging. The extent of de-oiling from the compact and imbibed into paper showed similar exponential decay with time for both porous systems. For the first time, oil migration dynamics on the food compact surface was 2D visualised via Raman spectroscopy and showed markedly different trends with varying environment climatic conditions and compact microstructure. The larger particle system leaked up to 50% of oil into paper, whereas the 50 μm system retained 100% of its oil, creating an effective internal oil barrier. This novel technique opens the way for further understanding liquid transfer between porous food media and harnessing microstructure engineering to increase food and packaging performance.