The use of plastic films for food packaging on rare occasion causes off-flavor problems, which are a result of residual additives and solvents in improperly made films. If present, these residual volatiles can migrate into the food product and contribute sensory defects because of their low flavor thresholds.Recently, a supplier's plastic packaging film was rejected by our plant personnel because of a musty off-odor defect. The odor intensity of the film was such that a distinguishable off-flavor would have been imparted to the finished food product. Because the supplier was unaware of the source of the odor defect and the reasons for its occurrence, a sample was submitted to the Basic Flavor group for analysis and identification of the off-odor.Analysis of the film sample The odor was evidently quite volatile; its intensity greatly diminished after the film was unrolled and left standing on the bench for an hour at room temperature. Hence the first step in the analytical approach was to obtain a volatile headspace profile of the film sam-
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