The value of packaging

Packaging significantly affects food waste and food loss, according to two speakers who delivered presentations during the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Sustainable Materials Management Web Academy webinar, “Reducing Wasted Food: How Packaging can Help,” March 19, 2015.

While the carbon footprint for some packaging is greater than that of others, Todd Bukowski, senior packaging consultant for Havi Global Solutions, Downers Grove, Illinois, and Ronald Cotterman, vice president of sustainability for Sealed Air Corp., Elmwood Park, New Jersey, both stressed the importance of looking at a product’s total carbon footprint as it travels through the supply chain. Both men said that when the entire supply chain is taken into effect, optimized packaging often reduces the overall carbon footprint of foods by reducing spoilage and waste generation.

“Packaging has a smaller environmental footprint than the product itself,” Bukowski said. “It protects all of the resources that went into producing that product.”
 

Reducing waste with packaging

HAVI’s Bukowski reminded attendees of the EPA’s food recovery hierarchy, where source reduction is the preferred method for managing food waste, followed by feeding hungry people; feeding animals; industrial uses, such as converting waste oil into fuel and turning food scraps into energy through digestion; composting; and landfill/incineration.

“Packaging’s most important role is reducing food waste,” he added, noting that the act of containing the product alone can help to reduce food waste significantly. He cited the bags used to package fresh grapes as an example, noting that a U.K. grocery chain eliminated 20 percent of its waste in the form of loose grapes.

Other features of packaging that help to reduce food waste are shelf-life protection through the use of moisture barriers and the like, the ability to reclose a package to maintain freshness and enabling portion control so consumers only use what they need, Bukowski said.

Food loss globally is estimated to be between 33 and 50 percent of all food grown, he said, adding that this loss occurs at different parts of the supply chain depending on whether the production occurs in a developed or in a developing country.

In developing countries, Bukowski said, transportation and processing account for 40 percent of the loss in light of the lack of infrastructure. However, in the U.S. and U.K., for example, the overwhelming majority of food waste occurs at the consumer level. Retailers and food-service providers combined also are sources of food waste in developed countries.

“The key insight here is that in the developed world, we really need to be engaging consumers in order to make a dent in food waste,” he said.

“The other part that stands out is that food loss in the developing world is largely impacted by a lack of adequate packaging. This helps to highlight the benefit that packaging can really provide in reducing food waste and food loss.”

However, Bukowski said, most consumers fail to understand the value of packaging and the technology that it employs to reduce food waste.

Sealed Air’s Cotterman also mentioned consumers’ misconceptions regarding packaging, saying, “Nine in 10 adults believe packaging material is worse for the environment than discarded food.”

He added that nearly half of consumers who responded to a Harris poll on consumer food waste in 2014 said they removed food from packaging that is designed to keep it fresher longer.

Bukowski pointed to consumer education efforts that the U.K.’s WRAP, a nonprofit that works with U.K. governments, the EU and other funders to help deliver policies on waste prevention and resource efficiency, has undertaken in this area through its Fresher for Longer campaign. The organization surveyed U.K. consumers, learning that only 13 percent thought keeping produce in its original packaging kept it fresher longer, while 61 percent thought fruits and vegetables spoiled more quickly in their original packages. To address these misconceptions, WRAP’s Fresher for Longer campaign instructs consumers to keep produce in its original packaging, to look for resealable and portion-minded packaging and to purchase the appropriate amount of food.
 

Innovative packaging

The goal of packaging designers and brand owners is to achieve a better food-to-packaging ratio while getting the same or better shelf life for a product, Bukowski said. This goal has led to lightweighting of plastic bottles and aluminum and steel cans. Water bottles, for instance, weighed 24 grams in 1990 while they weigh only 9.5 grams today, Bukowski noted.

This practice has affected material recovery facility (MRF) operators, however, as they now need to recover more bottles and cans to produce a ton of material.

The advent of central processing, which produces case-ready packages of fresh meats, also has helped to reduce food waste, Cotterman and Bukowski said. Store-wrapped trays of meat, such as ground beef, have a lower carbon footprint than case-ready packages because they do not require additional refrigerated transport or additional secondary packaging, Cotterman said. However, the carbon footprint of the overall product is reduced because central processing radically reduces retail food waste, shrinkage and in-store refrigeration, he said.

Bukowski noted additional benefits to central processing, such as increases in shelf life of up to seven days for some cuts of meat and using scraps in compost or animal feed applications, which is more difficult at the store level.

In the produce aisle, berries contribute significantly to retailer food waste because of their short shelf lives, Bukowski said. However, two recent technologies—perforated lidding film and ethylene absorbing pads known as It’s Fresh—have helped to extend the lives of berries at the retailer.

Other packaging innovations include biobased materials, such as the Plant Bottle introduced by Coca-Cola, which can be recycled with traditional PET (polyethylene terephthalate), Bukowski said. Retort and aseptic packaging have eliminated the need for refrigeration during shipment and in the store, while intelligent packaging uses gases produced by the fruit inside to indicate the degree of ripeness, he said.

Cotterman added that vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) can extend the life of fresh foods without using additives. He cited the following examples of how MAP can increase the refrigerated shelf life of fresh foods:

• lettuce – from two to four days to 14 days;
• red meat – from two to three days to 21 days;
• pasta – from three days to 60 days; and
• cheese – from seven days to 180 days.
   

However, he noted that packaging does not change the perishable nature of food or improve poor food quality.
 

Recyclability issues

Sustainability is an important issue for brand owners, and many seek to communicate this commitment by selecting recyclable packaging, Bukowski said. “Others may focus on compostable packaging, and others on having a biobased packaging component,” he added.

However, the most sustainable package in terms of a product’s overall carbon footprint may not be the easiest to recycle.

“The goal is really to protect this product that is inside,” Bukowski said.

“In the end, we really want to enable a good end-of-life solution for the package as well,” he said.

Bukowski added, “One of the things that gets missed, however, in this message is there is a lot of focus on the materials that are selected and not as much communicating on the sustainability element that packaging brings to reducing food waste.”

Cotterman said ideally packaging can reduce waste while at the same time also being recyclable.

“Everyone is thinking of end of life,” Bukowski said, adding that this was not necessarily the case 10 years ago.

However, he said brand owners approach packaging more holistically than consumers, for whom sustainability comes down to recyclability.

He acknowledged that some forms of packaging don’t lend themselves to recovery in a traditional MRF, which is where take-back programs can play a role, as in the case of film packaging and bags. Regarding closing the loop on packaging, Cotterman said “major barriers” exist concerning food safety. “Closing the loop on food packaging other than beverage containers is challenging.” However, he said recycling food packaging into nonfood packaging is a viable alternative.

Bukowski said closed-loop recycling of food packaging can and does occur at packaging convertors, where it is easier to achieve supply chain traceability. “Food safety will always be paramount.”

Regarding the packaging value chain, he said, end of life needs to be considered and understood early in the development of a package.

The author is managing editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted through email at dtoto@gie.net.