Optimizing Food and Beverage Packaging with nexAir’s Gas Solutions for Efficiency

Packaged food sits on shelves for days or weeks before someone buys it. During that time, oxygen, bacteria, and moisture are working to spoil it. The gas inside each package is the only thing standing between fresh product and something headed for the dumpster. Get the atmosphere wrong and you’re throwing away inventory or dealing with angry customers who bought food that went bad too soon.

The Right Gas Mix Depends on What’s Inside

Meat, cheese, and lettuce all spoil differently, which means they need different protective atmospheres. Fresh beef needs high oxygen to keep that bright red color consumers expect. Take away the oxygen and the meat turns brown, even though it’s still safe to eat. Nobody’s buying brown meat. Sliced deli meat is the opposite—it needs low oxygen to slow bacterial growth and extend shelf life by weeks instead of days. The gas mixture that works for one product category fails completely for another, so generic solutions cost you money in wasted product.

Carbon Dioxide Does More Than Fill Space

CO2 actively fights spoilage by creating an environment where bacteria and mold struggle to grow. It’s not just displacing oxygen—it’s making the package hostile to the organisms that ruin food. Fresh salads, sliced vegetables, and prepared meals all benefit from CO2-enriched atmospheres that buy extra days before spoilage becomes visible.

The tricky part is using enough CO2 to preserve the food without using so much that it affects taste or texture. Some products absorb CO2 and develop off-flavors or package collapse when concentrations run too high. Finding that sweet spot requires understanding both the product and the gas behavior. We’ve worked with enough food producers to know which concentrations work for different product types without creating new problems while solving the spoilage issue.

Purity Matters More Than Most People Realize

You can have perfect gas ratios and still ruin your packaging if the gases themselves are contaminated. Moisture in your nitrogen supply introduces the very thing you’re trying to keep out. Oxygen contamination in what should be an inert atmosphere defeats the whole point. Dirty delivery lines add particles or odors that affect product quality.

Food-grade gases need to meet strict purity standards, and your delivery system needs to maintain that purity all the way to the packaging line. Regular testing catches problems before they contaminate production runs. Clean lines, proper storage, and handling protocols that prevent contamination protect your product and your reputation. Cutting corners on gas purity to save a few dollars creates much bigger costs when you have to dump spoiled inventory or deal with customer complaints.

Shelf Life Impacts Your Entire Operation

Longer shelf life means products can travel farther and sit in distribution longer before reaching consumers. That opens up new markets and reduces the pressure to move product immediately. It also means less waste from unsold inventory that expires before it sells. The difference between a seven-day shelf life and a fourteen-day shelf life changes your entire distribution strategy and dramatically reduces the percentage of product that gets thrown away.

Modified atmosphere packaging with the right gas solutions turns shelf life from a constraint into a competitive advantage. You can ship to retailers others can’t reach. You can offer better freshness guarantees. You reduce the percentage of revenue lost to spoilage. Those benefits compound across thousands of units and add up to real money that either stays in your business or gets thrown in the trash.

nexAir works with food and beverage operations to Forge Forward with packaging solutions that protect product quality and reduce waste, backed by our expert KnowHow™ from years of solving preservation challenges across the industry. Get in touch and we’ll help you figure out which gas solutions make sense for what you’re packaging.