Packaging wheat flour in laminated jute bags.

Wheat flour produced in the mills in India is
at present being filled in jute bags and transported
to distant centres for consumption. The jute
bag as a container has an inherent drawback namely,
that it does not afford any protection against
external dirt, changes in the climatic condition
e.g., moisture and depredations of insects. Also
spillage through the seams is relatively high in
jute bags. In our field studies this has been
estimated to be about one pound. Moreover,
when the bag full of flour is emptied, the last few
pounds are contaminated with jute fibre, dirt, etc.
which render it not useful for bakeries as such.
Earlier works' 2' 3 has shown that insect
damages could be effectively checked by impregnation
of jute bags with insecticides. This
method, however, did not prove useful for the
flour-bags since the flour, seeping through the
pores of the bag, masks the impregnated insecticide
film'. Lamination of the jute bag as a barrier
to insects and moisture and also to prevent
seepage was therefore thought of and the results of
the studies carried out on two types of laminations
are described in this paper.