**1.1 Definition of concepts**

### *1.1.1 Food packaging*

This is defined as an enclosure of fresh or processed foods in a container called a package with an intention to hold and keep the foods for a later use. This definition explains the containment, protection or preservation functions of food packaging indicated in the literature. Coles [5] alluded to its marketing orientation to define it as 'a coordinated system of preparing food for transport, distribution, storage, retailing, and end-use to satisfy the ultimate consumer with optimal cost'. It can be equally defined as a post-processing operation, which although not part of raw materials, is designed to improve or further the values of fresh or processed food products to food industry. Shin and Selke [6], aligned with that above definition by stating that it is a follow-up to the completion of food processing operations for maintaining the benefits of processing efforts, carried out to enable food products travel safely for long distances from their point of origin to the table of consumers at a wholesome condition. They averred that food packaging emanated from the demands of modern or advancement in food system that revolves around ensuring that food products move through distribution channels to the consumer in safe and acceptable quality conditions. Also, food packaging, may be considered as enclosure of fresh or processed food products for passing the relevant information to expected consumers to encourage their patronage. This definition is in tandem with the report of Marsh and Bugusu [1] that stated that packaging is the face of food products designed to expose the products to consumers and or induce/influence the expected consumers' patronage. Similarly, food packaging is defined as preparing or arranging or configuring processed or fresh food products for easier or convenient utilization of the products. Packaging role in making food products easier for consumers to consume is reflected in designing some packages to have dispensing and resealing features, ability-to-cook and eat-theproduct within its specific packaging features, easier handling features etc. [4].

The definitions of Food packaging indicate that it is a conglomerate of activities designed to ensure that food products are handled to maximally benefit those that have interest in the products such as the producers, the marketers and the consumers. Hence, the definition spans through enclosure to protecting/preserving the product, containing for safe distribution of the products, easing difficulties in the utilization of the products and; to communicating to draw attentions of the potential consumers in order to encourage the marketability of the products. It mediates between the producers of fresh or processed food products and the consumers, ensuring movement of the product through distribution channels with untampered values.

#### *1.1.2 Organizational market share*

Organizational market share is the portion of market sales accruable to a given organization by the sales of its product(s) measured within a given period of time. Some school of thought considers market share as that percentage of total customers' purchases of a given product that goes to a given individual, organization or nation. It is also defined as the measure of the relative size of a business with respect to other participants in the same market, but is not a measure of a relative size elsewhere in the value chain [7]. **Table 1** shows the contribution of packaging to the values of market share gained by products due to the types of packaging materials used.


#### **Table 1.**

*Packaging market trends.*

Market share is a measure of consumers' preference for product over other similar products or consumers' preference for product from a given organization over other products from other organizations, indicating that higher market share emanate from making greater sales, having less efforts to sell more and having strong barrier to entry for competitors [9]. The types of market shares mentioned by the literature are value market share and volume market share. The value market share is based on the total share of a company out of the total segment sales. Volumes refers to the actual numbers of units that a company sells out of a total units sold in the market. In marketing literature, market share is considered as a demonstration of the effort of an organization to compete in product-market place. This view is in agreement with the report of Farris *et al*. [9] that considered market share as a reflection of successful efforts an organization unleashed in selling its product by advertising and promotion, product/service offering quality and price, channel and customer relationships, and selling activities.

#### *1.1.3 Advancing food preservation*

The concept of advancing food preservation is all about taking, the elongation of wholesomeness (quality and edibility) of fresh and processed food products, to greater levels by applying scientific knowledge using available technologies and procedures to discourage the activities of agents of food deterioration/spoilage and foodborne diseases. Preservation attempts at elongating the quality or usefulness of the products by elimination or slowing down microorganisms, oxidation of available fats that instigate rancidity or activities of enzymes responsible for chemical deteriorations [10]. The literature indicates that the elimination of the spoilage/deterioration agents is usually, taken care of, during processing (conversion of raw food materials to desired products), as the heat energy applied for processing eliminates or reduces the microbial loads and or inactivate enzymes. Advancing food preservation goes beyond ensuring maintenance of food shelf-life and safety to seeing that mildly processed food products have an elongated shelf-life with the right quality, nutritional values, and safety, sensory attributes (taste, appearance, color etc.). Ayoub [11], associated advancing preservation with the emergence of novel preservation process which shifted from

### *The Place of Packaging System in Advancing Food Preservation for Promoting Food Products'… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108235*

the use of conventional methods of processing like thermization, pasteurization, and in-container sterilization; to novel food processing technologies. His report showed that these technologies are grouped into non-thermal processes which uses physical means as inactivation factors like pressure, electromagnetic field, sounds etc. and they include high pressure processing (HPP), pulse electric fields, irradiation, ultrasound, cold plasma, ozone, supercritical; and thermal which mainly uses energy generated by microwave and radio frequency and they include microwave, radio frequency, ohmic heating and inductive heating. Advancing preservation by preventing recontamination entails creating barriers that circumvent interactions between food products and outside environmental atmosphere using packaging system that encloses the product with different atmospheric conditions unfavorable to the activities of deteriorating/spoilage agents. Also, advancing food preservation may, also, be considered as increasingly prolonging keeping quality and enhancing the economic orientation of food products with an insignificant or no effect on the physiochemical conditions of food. Hassan et al. [12] adduced that advancing food preservation is, also, achieved through application of advanced techniques involving the use of natural ingredients, example is the use of natural antioxidants in preservation of foods. Hence, advancing food preservation is keeping or maintaining the quality of food products, from the point of production through the channels of distribution, with all the conditions that coincide with the expectations of the consumers. The same reasons that instigated the evolvement of novel food processing technologies like production of safer, long shelf-life, higher quality, good nutritional valuable, and healthy promoting food products with acceptable sensorial parameters [13] caused the emergence of novel packaging technologies, as mildly processed food products, which for instance, are increasingly desired by consumers are to be ensured to be in acceptable condition from the point of production through to the time of consumption [14]. Packaging systems are facilitators of unitization of advancement in food preservation. The novel packaging technologies outlined by [13] to include; active packaging, intelligent packaging, eco-friendly packaging, bioactive packaging, nanotechnology, modified atmosphere packaging, controlled atmosphere packaging and others, are advancing food preservation technology.
