Excess moisture and oxygen are leading causes of food spoilage, and yet many assays for vapor or gas content inside of a package require destruction of the package .
Thus, in processing facilities, packaged foods are tested randomly during a production run, typically one in every 300–400 packages , which is time-consuming and costly, yet does not ensure that unsampled packages meet quality and safety standards.
The ability to continually and easily monitor the gas content of a package headspace would also provide a means to assess the safety and quality of the contained food long after it has left the production facility, suggesting that noninvasive leak detection and gas content methods would be invaluable