9. Fresh Food packaging & sustainability

Most applied protective packaging technologies in EU currently available

• MAP (meat, fish, meals, cheese)

• E-MAP (fruit, vegetables, soft cheeses)

• Vacuum & Skin (meat, cheese, technical parts)

Hardly applied protective packaging technologies in EU

• Active packaging

  • Oxygen scavengers

  • Flavour release

Tray sealer

Small-lab scale

• 1 pull vacuum

  • -0.85 atm: vegetables

  • -0.96 atm: meat

• 2 applies over-pressure gas mixture

  • +0.05 atm

• 3 seals and opens

Shelf life of fresh meat products (traditional vs MAP)

Traditional:

• Air

• Weak products: 2 days

• Strong products: 4 days

• Mostly Pseudomonas & entero’s

MAP:

• 60% O₂, 30% CO₂, 10% N₂

• Weak products: 5 days

• Strong products 8 days

Pseudomonas & lactic acid bacteria

Meat colour & pigments

Packaging used on fresh meat

Seals with meat on flange (a protruding ridge, lip, or rim)

• PET-PE trays + PE-PET top-film

• PET-PE trays + PE-EVOH-PP top-film

Seals only with clean flanges

• Real mono-PET trays + modified-PET-PET top-film

• Modified PET to facilitate sealing

Costs of MAP

• A one cent difference makes a big difference

  • But overall the change in packaging has been cheaper and more cost effective

• If shelf life is longer you have less workers because less meat needs to be packaged.

MAP for fish - disadvantages

• Very difficult

• Has much more dynamic processes inside fish packages

• Fat oxidation, amine formation, enzymatic decay, microbial respiration, permeation & CO₂ absorption

• Growth of microbes on fish is slowed down less by CO₂ than those on meat

• Keeping fish fresh in MAP is much more challenging

Fish MAP - advantages

• Oxygen prevents pungent odour of fish

• Legal limit for amin content 35 mg N/100g

• Fish is much more temperature sensitive

• Lean fish: 60% O₂ - 40% CO₂

  • Has less oxidation sensitive fats

  • The high oxygen in the lean fish is used to react with the dimetilamina and the trimetilamina to the corresponding amine oxides that do not smell

  • Oxygen is used as a mask to prevent pungent odor

• Fat fish: 40% CO₂ - 60% N₂ (Fat in fish is really sensitive to oxidation, hence there is no oxygen)

Future of MAP for meat/fish

• Prolong shelf-life

  • Reach distant markets (food needs to stay good during transport)

  • Source from PL, CZ, UKR (because it is cheaper)

• Make packed fish more attractive by using MAP meals

• Adding oxygen to these pre-packed meals makes post-pasteurized meals more attractive (specifically oxygen absorbers)

PPP: packaging + process + product

skin-packaging technology

Combination MAP and marinades

MAP + oil

• longest shelf life of 10 days

• under abuse conditions (5 C)

The shelf-life depends on the acceptance limit for the colony forming units

• These acceptance limits can be determined by supermarkets themselves

Vacuum packaging for meat

• Doesn’t work with all meat types

• Longer shelf life than MAP: 18-21 days

• Better display options

• Issue with acceptance of purple fresh meat

• Marination to make it look good

• Different machines, but very expensive machines and slow

• Multiple layers so bad for the environment

From trays to flow packs for meat?

• Plastic reduction

• In 2020 several meat companies started with PP/EVOH/PP films

• Weight reduction of 70-80%

• Lower costs but new machines

• Mediocre recyclability to MIX

The three P’s for extending the shelf life of fresh meat

P: protective packaging

P: initial load of the product

P: Process: temperature and hygiene

Amount of microbes on meat in different stages

Around 2000:

• NL/EU initial TAC used to be: 10⁴ CFU/g

Nowadays: Decontamination: carcass and parts

• USA: chemistry (disinfectants): 10² CFU/g (not allowed in EU)

• EU: new tech in coming decade (using steam) : 10¹-10² CFU/g

Alternatively nowadays: Hygienic redesign of the complete company

• Eliminate cross contamination technology leads a contamination level of: 10³ CFU/g

• Ultrafast chilling of carcasses technology leads a contamination level of: 10¹ CFU/g

How to manage temperature in the chain

Slaughter and production:

• To chill carcasses as quickly ans possible

• Chilled cutting and boning rooms

  • Labor law or meat quality

  • Laborers cannot be in very cold temperatures at all times during their work so neither will the meat be

How has the meat supply chain been optimized in the last few years

Fresh cut food products market in NL

Respiration in fruits and vegetables

when you have mixed veggies, is really hard because they all transpire differnetly → solution= perforations

Effect of different RH%

• 100% cucumbers → PE shrink film

  • Cucumbers need very high humidity (close to 100%) to prevent water loss.

• 85% bell-peppers, tomatoes → macro-perforated films

  • These vegetables still need humidity, but not as high as cucumbers.

Polyolefin films vegetables

Variation in quality of vegetables

• Variations of >100% in:

  • Microbiological load

  • Respiration activity

• Origin, harvest method, growing conditions, seed type

• Simultaneously:

  • Control the initial quality and optimise packaging

What are the three main protective packaging technologies?

MHP: control of moisture loss (g/day)

• Tomatoes, bell-pepper, cucumber, mushrooms

• Barrier film - macro-perfoated films

EMAP: control of gas composition

• Strawberries, spinach, brocolli, belgian endive

• Laser perforated films

Anaerobic EMAP

• Additionally protective against cutting discoloartion

• Cut onions, egg plant, courgette, salads, fruits

• Normal BOPP film with at most 1 micro perforation

EMAP number of micro-perfoations

• You don’t want too many or too little

• too much CO₂ = fermentation/rot

• Too little CO₂= red discoloration

History of sustainability

• 1707 - more trees cut down then there were trees they realized

• 1950/60s - computers calculated that at that rate we would consume more than we had giving a shock

• 1979 - Waste hierarchy was created supported re-use and recycle ideas

• 1987 - sustainable development idea

• 1994 - Planet, profit and people

• 2002 - cradle-2-cradle, idea that you could make a chair disassemble it and make it into a new chair.

• 2009 - Calculated limits to our growth, planetary boundary

• 2018 - donut economy

• 2022 - triple planetary crisis

3 planetary crisis

• The three planetary crisises are: biodiversity loss, climate change and planetary pollution and they also affect each other

• our use of packages impacts all three crises simultaneously, often negatively sometimes postively

• It is about finding the right balance

Sustainable packaging

early attempts to grasp the notion of sustainable packaging (2009-2011)

“packaging is not inherently sustainable, but it can help in making a product or a production method more sustainable."

Later this defintion of “Sustainble packaging coalition” became much more complicated

Packaging and sustainability between 2000-2018

Sustainable packaging was regarded as the most climate neutral one

• LCA enabled Global Warming Potential (GWP) calculations which sparked policies.

• The contribution of packaging is limited

Packaging and sustainability from 2015 on.

• From 2015 on: Planetary pollution is noticed

• Shifted in focus from climate change to circularity

Why do we have planetary pollution?

1. Lack of waste management infrastructure in most of the world

2. Human littering behavior

3. Crooked laws in developed countries to register exported plastic waste as ‘recycled’

The new plastic economy

• Idea by the Ellen McArthur Foundation in 2016

• Circularity was perceived as a method to reduce planetary pollution

What is recyclability?

Everything can be recycled; it matters what you aim for:

• Recyclability is by inherently depending on:

  • The targets

  • The infrastructure available

• hence it is situational, temporal, context dependent

Open loop vs. Closed loop recyling

Recyclable (open loop): implies that the main material of the package can be retrieved and used again in a new application

• Almost all current plastic packages can be open-loop recycled into park-benches, plastic lumber, etc.

Circular recyclable (closed loop): implies that the main material of the package can be retrieved and used again in the same or comparable application

• PET bottle-to-bottle recycling

Intrinsic sustainable packaging

• Can be infinitely recyclable

• And if littered will dissolve in the rain

• Perfect example = egg carton

Expansion of LCA

• Lots of work to measure littering rates!

  • Depends on city and culture

• Microplastic dispersion is really hard to predict as it varies depending on conditions

• Effect on health unknown

• Therefore hard to expand LCA

Footprints and handprints

• We really need packaging though, because we are living in an urbanized society, and we need central production, and that means we need packaging.

• We have to find better balance between the benefits of packaging, being able to live as we an and not harming the planet.

• Footprints = burdens

• Handprints = Benefits

• Balance between footprints and handprints

New definition for a sustainable package

• Offers maximal protection (minimal food loss)

• Has minimal impact on the triple planetary crisis, which can be shown with:

  • An analysis of the impact on climate change (GWP-100) executed with recent food loss rates and local end-of-life fates elaborated with

  • An indicator for planetary pollution and,

  • An indicator for the loss of biodiversity

• Balances the social and economic pros and cons for civilians and incumbents

What can we do today about sustainability?

• Sustainability is complicated → improving one thing reduces quality of another there is no simple solution

Examples of reduce

Suitable for larger fresh products: melons, cabbages, apples, bananas (DON’T NEED PACKAGING)

Issues with reducing:

• Foods need to be labeled.

• Shrivelling, bruising of foods

Unsuitable for:

• Liquids

• Small products such as berries that need to be contained

Examples of Reuse

• Food-safety only allows: glass, stainless steel and PP

• All companies with an existing reusable glass bottle system want to maintain it

Examples of replace

• Using paper bags and carton trays instead of plastics

Issues:

• Moisture sensitive

• Non-recyclability of coated paper

• Only clean paper bags are allowed in the paper waste

Limited applicable and suitable

Beware of regrettable replacements

Examples of recycle

• Most FMCG companies strive for well-recyclable packages and if allowed, also the use of recycled content

• nevertheless results in multiple dilemmas

Can biobased packages offer solutions? & name some examples

Current applications:

• Beer cups

  • PLA does not splinter

• Organic fresh produce

  • Avoid upsetting the heavy users of organic food

  • Cheapest campaign to promote a sustainable images

• Other applications: difficult to get equal performance

• Generate free publicity (because the packaging is different)

• Difficult to fit in the current waste system (doesnt recycle)

Performance, profit, planet and people regarding bio-based packages

• Performance: equal or less

• Profit: always (a bit) more expensive

• Planet:

  • Climate change: sometimes better

  • Planetary pollution: less persistent pollution

  • Biodiversity loss: sometimes better

• People

  • Appealing to many consumers

  • Beware for inflation

What are the barriers to set-up a new reuse system?

• DRS-high collection rates/retail commitment

• Standardised pool bottles - minimal distances

• Non-viscous beverages/products - easy cleaning

• Consumer acceptance & long-during participation

Graph with perfect amoutn of perforations to match respiration rate