Project

Call for partners | Combining sustainable packaging design & natural preservatives to increase shelf life and reduce food waste

EU- and national-regulations, and branch organisations have set challenging goals towards the use of circular and sustainable packaging’s for the coming years. However, these often do not yet reach the same properties as conventional solutions, shortening shelf life and increasing risk of food waste. Wageningen Food & Biobased Research (WFBR) is starting a consortium that will generate predictive tools to combine sustainable packaging design and natural preservatives for optimal shelf life while reducing food waste.
We welcome partners, who are ready to address this challenge, to join this project.

From a sustainable point of view, a revolution within the food sector is happening nowadays. Conventional fossil plastic and non-recyclable plastic packaging are getting banished and should be replaced by more sustainable solutions. Biobased plastic and monolayer packaging are being developed, but do not yet reach similar packaging properties as conventional solutions. A multidisciplinary approach is required to optimize solutions. At WFBR, experts in sustainable packaging, food quality & preservation and modelling will join forces to create a multi-criteria decision support tool that will help food industries to optimize design of food and sustainable packaging.

The proposed project will focus on three key-elements to create new food-designs

  1. sustainable packaging
  2. product characteristic
  3. natural ingredients

The efficiency of new food packaging designs will be assessed at several levels

  1. storage and packaging conditions: temperature, gas contents.
  2. product quality parameters: enzymatic activity, oxidation, discoloration, etc.
  3. effect on the food spoilage microbiome: traditional counting and amplicon sequencing method
  4. flavour preservation: off-flavour analysis.

COMPLEMENTARY will generate predictive tools to combine additive- and synergic-effects between sustainable packaging, product quality and food ingredients. The integrated approach will ensure optimal shelf life while reducing food waste of perishable food as for example fresh and processed food.

Partners

We invite food companies intending to use sustainable packaging, manufacturers of packaging solutions & processing technologies, and suppliers of ingredients solutions to join this consortium. In return for in-cash and in-kind contributions to the project, partners will benefit from an integral approach that will help them to reach their sustainability goal, optimize shelf life and reduce food waste for their product portfolio.