This Brief describes the chemical features of canned food products and gives background information on the technology of canning foods. It explains how canned foods are different from other packaged foods, and illustrates and discusses their unique properties, including risks and failures. Canned foods are usually considered to offer a particularly long shelf-life and durability. An understanding of their properties and influences on their durability is therefore of great importance in the industrial production, and this Brief offers a compact introduction to this topic. The authors focus on thermally-preserved foods. They explain that the right choice of thermal treatment method (e.g. pasteurisation, sterilisation) as well as process parameters (e.g. time, temperature) is additionally influenced by criteria such as pH, water content, the presence and concentration of fatty molecules, of calcium, etc. So-called 'survival curves' can help in determining themethodology of choice, and the Brief introduces the reader to this concept. The authors also address defects and failures. They introduce selected indicators, which can help identifying failures of the entire food/packaging system, and demonstrate how image and visual analysis can be applied in quality controls. The explanations and industrial production of canned foods are exemplified with the case of canned tomato sauces and beans.

Autorentext
****Angela Montanari is a chemist and a specialist in corrosion sciences and techniques. She is responsible for the Packaging Department at the Experimental Station for Food Preserve Industry (SSICA), where she coordinates the research and service activities on the compatibility between packaging and food products as well as packed product safety. Dr Montanari is an expert of the European and National legislation on packaging material, and has published over 100 articles in national and international journals, being also co-author of the book Metallic materials and packaging for food industry, Collana Monografie SSICA. Dr Montanari is author of three patents about the development of packaging materials from agro industrial by-products. Caterina Barone is an experienced author in the field of food science and quality audits. She is an ISO 9001-auditor in different sectors, including also professional training services. Her recent works are focused on food packaging hygiene, chemical and technological features of cheeses and other prepared foods, dedicated BASIC software, and microbial toxins in different foods for human consumption.

Michele Barone is an experienced consultant working in the field of food science and technology, and also in restoration chemistry. His work in food science focus mainly on food packaging and correlated failures, and selected food products with a dedicated tradition (as for instance, the Mediterranean Diet). More recently, he has written about food traceability systems in the field of European cheese products.

Anna Santangelo is a food biotechnologist with a major focus on molecular biology, and she is currently working for Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Italy as a New Product Development Specialist. Anna has previously conducted research at the Second University of Naples (Italy) and the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom), and she had also been involved in the QualityAssurance sector of Princes Ltd, Italy, dealing with the implementation and assurance of product standards and packaging.

Inhalt
Canned Foods: Principles of Thermal Processing.- Failures of Thermally-Treated Canned Foods.- Metal Cans and Canned Foods: Image Analysis of Visual Failures.- Canned Tomato Sauces and Beans: Industrial Processes.