According to the North American Metal Packaging Alliance, families can celebrate the upcoming holiday with peace of mind, knowing that the canned foods they’re enjoying are safe. It has been a reported three-decade gap since the last reported foodborne illness linked to a failure of cans or other metal packaging.
Food safety first
John Rost, chairman of NAMPA, said that metal packaging companies help food processors and consumers ensure the safety of the US food supply.
“Our industry is fully engaged and committed to consumer safety so that when families come together for Thanksgiving dinner, their only concern is whether to have that second helping or not,” he said.
Rost pointed to progress in manufacturing of metal packaging as a factor in helping maintain the format’s presence on store shelves and in home pantries.
“The latest advances in materials and coatings, as well as state-of-the-art visual and mechanical inspection of every single can that is manufactured, are integral to a food safety record for metal packaging that is without parallel today,” he said.
Long history
Canned foods have been used for roughly 200 years. While formats (such as pouches, plastic jars, cartons and other packaging types) have popped up in those two centuries, cans are still going strong.
In the US alone, more than 130bn cans are produced annually. This figures into approximately 4,300 rolling off production lines every second.
The US Food and Drug Administration has not recorded a case of botulism as the result of a structural failure in metal food packaging in more than 30 years. Rost credits this record to the use of can linings, which provide corrosion resistance, and inhibit bacterial and microbial contamination.