Sustainable food packaging: An updated definition following a holistic approach

Food packaging solutions need to be redesigned to be more sustainable, but determining which solution is ‘more optimal’ is a very difficult task when considering the entire food product value chain. Previous papers paved the way toward a sustainable food packaging definition, but it is far from being commonly accepted or well usable in the broad food systems domain, which further results in uninformed choices for sustainable food packaging made by all stakeholders in the value chain: producers, distributors, practitioners and consumers. Therefore, this work aims first at giving a state-of-the-art overview of sustainable food packaging terms (38 similar terms were identified and grouped into four clusters: Sustainable, Circular, Bio and Other sustainable packaging) and definitions using systematic (narrative) review analysis and ‘controlled expert opinion feedback’ methodology. Second, it aims to offer an updated definition for sustainable food packaging, which is also specific to food packaging and be simple, coherent, easily understandable, and communicable to everybody. The applied holistic approach intends to include all aspects of the food-packaging unit, to consider food safety and packaging functionality, while taking into account different disciplines and challenges related to food packaging along the supply chain. Being a balancing act, a sustainable food packaging may not be a perfect solution, but contextual, suboptimal and in need of constant validation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sustainable food packaging: An updated definition following a holistic approach

publishedVersio

(Not) Communicating the Environmental Friendliness of Food Packaging to Consumers

While consumer understanding of and preferences for environmentally friendly packaging options have been well investigated, little is known about the environmentally friendly packaging attributes communicated to consumers by suppliers via packaging cues. We thus propose a literature-based attribute-cue matrix as a tool for analyzing packaging solutions. Using a 2021 snapshot of the wafer market in nine European countries, we demonstrate the tool’s utility by analyzing the cues found that signal environmentally friendly packaging attributes. While the literature suggests that environmentally friendly packaging is increasingly used by manufacturers, our analysis of 164 wafer packages shows that communication is very limited except for information related to recyclability and disposal. This is frequently communicated via labels (e.g., recycling codes, Green Dot) and structural cues that implicitly signal reduced material use (e.g., less headspace and few packaging levels). Our attribute–cue matrix enables researchers, companies, and policymakers to analyze and improve packaging solutions across countries and product categories. Our finding that environmentally friendly packaging attributes are not being communicated to consumers underscores a pressing need for better communication strategies. Both direct on-pack and implicit communication should help consumers choose more environmentally friendly packaging. Governments are encouraged to apply our tool to identify communication gaps and adopt labeling regulations where needed

Cereal and Confectionary Packaging: Assessment of Sustainability and Environmental Impact with a Special Focus on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The usefulness of food packaging is often questioned in the public debate about (ecological) sustainability. While worldwide packaging-related CO2 emissions are accountable for approximately 5% of emissions, specific packaging solutions can reach significantly higher values depending on use case and product group. Unlike other groups, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and life cycle assessment (LCA) of cereal and confectionary products have not been the focus of comprehensive reviews so far. Consequently, the present review first contextualizes packaging, sustainability and related LCA methods and then depicts how cereal and confectionary packaging has been presented in different LCA studies. The results reveal that only a few studies sufficiently include (primary, secondary and tertiary) packaging in LCAs and when they do, the focus is mainly on the direct (e.g., material used) rather than indirect environmental impacts (e.g., food losses and waste) of the like. In addition, it is shown that the packaging of cereals and confectionary contributes on average 9.18% to GHG emissions of the entire food packaging system. Finally, recommendations on how to improve packaging sustainability, how to better include packaging in LCAs and how to reflect this in management-related activities are displayed