Food waste and eco-design : sinergy between food and packaging LCA

Food packaging solutions available in the market are plenty with different material compositions and shelf life potentialities. Nowadays, in a scenario where 1.3 billion tons of food products are wasted every year, and these wastes may occur at any step throughout the food supply chain (from farm to fork), it is desirable to identify the best packaging solution highlighting a better shelf life perspective. Food packaging sector is evolving, entering in the market the optimized packaging concept which can help food waste reduction with less environmental impact. The work aims to present two case studies which consider food waste reduction, packaging design and circular economy approach through the Life Cycle Assessment method. For each case study, an eco-design approach was performed considering all the resources such as electric and thermal energy, water, materials, and transport necessary to obtain food packaging and food products environmental impacts. Different functional features of the packaging were accounted for (e.g. potential food waste production, shelf life extension, and beef browning prevention) to normalize the environmental impact resulting from the analysis. Moreover, multivariate approaches (Principal Component Analysis) were performed to correlate environmental impacts and the functional characteristics of the packaging. The results highlight how the less environmental impact packaging solution does not always represent the greener solution considering also functional characteristics of the packaging implying higher potential food wasted. In conclusion there is the necessity to design packaging simultaneously capable of maintaining food quality and safety, to reduce food losses, and to promote circular economy models identifying greener packaging solutions.