Sustainable packaging

Recently, packaging was identified as an essential element to address the key challenge of sustainable food consumption and is gaining interest among scientists. Packaging is a central element to food quality preservation by mainly, controlling gas and vapor exchanges with the external atmosphere, contributing to preserving food quality during storage, preventing food safety issues (prevention of food-borne diseases and food chemical contamination) and extending food shelf-life. Significant benefits are expected in terms of reduction of food waste thanks to shelf-life extension, especially by using a quality packaging machines & well dimensioned packaging material, adapted to food needs in term of preservation. However, packaging is usually wrongly considered as an additional economic and environmental cost rather than an added value for waste reduction. Moreover, primary packaging is, currently not always well adapted to the food needs and therefore does not efficiently and sufficiently contribute to maintain the shelf life of the food.