Frozen / Processed Food Applications
Temperature is an important factor in controlling microbial growth in refrigerated foods. Lower the storage temperature, slower will be the microbial growth. Thus, frozen / processed food items are required to be stored at recommended temperatures. Equally important is to monitor / measure the storage temperatures and to maintain them.
The products of concern, are those designed for refrigerated storage over extended periods of time. This category may include frozen vegetables, like peas, tomato, cauliflower, cheese, butter, milk seafood, meat, etc. Although these foods are covered by the Food & Drug Act current regulations do not specifically address this class of products with the same depth as desired by virtue of uninterrupted refrigerated need. There is no mention of any mechanism that can detect, if the product has been exposed to higher temperatures than recommended.
Thus, to have a fool proof monitoring / feed back system regarding maintenance of recommended temperatures throughout the period of storage, temperature sensitive paints / labels are the optimum choice.
Fruits & Vegetables
The market demand potential for temperature sensitive labels works out to be 620 million numbers per annum (Annexure –XVIII).
Even a small percentage of milk that is packed in sachets (1.5%) and converted into packed khoya / paneer (0.5%) would need 1780 million labels of temperature sensitive paints, if all the packs are brought under the ambit of this technology (Annexure –XVIII).
The proposed meat and meat product packs in 1992-93 had a potential of using 165 million labels of temperature sensitive paints (Annexure –XVIII).
We find that frozen / processed food (vegetables, fruits, milk, meat & sea food) items at the level of 1992-93 processing and exports hold a potential to use 3300 M labels of temperature sensitive paints (Annexure –XVIII).
The estimated demand potential as worked out is given below :
| 1995-96 |
1999-2000 |
|
| 1. Processed vegetables and fruits | 825 |
1208 |
| 2. Processed milk | 2822 | 4132 |
| 3. Processed milk and sea food | 859 | 1502 |
Industrial Applications
Temperature indicators / sensors are an integral part of all the segments of industry. Recommended operating temperature range is required to be maintained in all processes be it a chemical reaction or operation in a furnace or a welding or even machining operation.
The following applications can be exclusively tapped by temperature sensitive labels.
| Locations / situations a label can be put but where a thermometer or any other temperature recorder would create problems. | |
| Trails / endurance tests on various machines / process / plants etc. during which temperature rise / decrease is required to be maintained within certain limits. Temperature sensitive labels can be used as "ready to use and disposable thermometers". It would work out cheaper also. | |
| In continuous working machines including the office automation equipments like compute, where if the temperature rise needs to be contained within a specified range, these labels can be stuck to give an advance indication to the operator. | |
| As a spin off, these labels would provide an economical, reliable and quick solution to a lot of domestic as well as commercial applications for temperature measurement. e.g. in a present household, one ends up paying rs.60 to 100 (depending upon the location of the house) just to check the temperature for cooling of the fridge. Instead one can buy a thermometer for Rs.100 and check the same. |
To make an assessment of number of labels this application would need is quite difficult at this stage, but it can be said that once this application picks up, the demand could run into thousands of millions of labels per year. Back
