In Europe, nearly two billion tons of
fresh food packaged under modified atmosphere were consumed in 2013, and the number keeps growing. Another big number related to packaged fresh foods is the amount of waste:
about 40% of finished products are not consumed. Part of the wastage occurs in the
supply chain (storage, transport and distribution), which means that the food being thrown away is still packaged! This shows that conventional modified atmosphere packaging is
not always sufficient to guarantee the preservation of food.
Moreover, packaging thrown away along with food are usually oil-based, and can only be recovered through combustion. Therefore, food and packaging waste is both an
economic and ecological challenge.
ACTIPOLY is a European CORNET project which aims at developing an
alternative biobased and biodegradable packaging solution that would improve the protection of fresh foods.
Several materials will be developed in order to put together a complete packaging: