Patent ID: 8372460

Claim:
A method for sanitation and preservation of foodstuffs, comprising the steps of: placing foodstuffs into individual compartments of a pre-formed, rigid or semi-rigid, continuous plastic lower film; feeding a web to tops of the individual compartments; feeding the combined web, compartmented film, and foodstuffs batchwise to a food packaging machine; introducing a non-thermal plasma into the individual while the individual compartments are inside the food packaging machine, said step of introducing a non-thermal plasma comprises a step selected from the group consisting of: conveying a non-thermal plasma to interiors of the individual compartments inside the food packaging machine, the conveyed non-thermal plasma being generated outside of and remote from the individual compartments, and generating a non-thermal plasma from a treatment gas inside the individual compartments inside the food packaging machine, a device generating the non-thermal plasma being built into the food packaging machine or into the combined web and compartmented film; after exposure of the foodstuffs to the non-thermal plasma for a desired period of time, sealing the web to the compartmented film; and cutting the sealed web and compartmented film in between the compartments containing foodstuffs thereby providing individual sealed containers of foodstuffs.