In order to feed an increasing world population with good and safe food it is important to reduce the amount of food waste. The global population is expected to grow to 9 billion and over the same period food production will be under threat from climate change, competing land uses, erosion and diminishing supplies of clean water. Packaging plays an important role in containing and protecting the food as it moves from agriculture to households. This work is a summary from an international literature review and interviews from 15 organisations in the Australian food and packaging supply chain. It considers food waste in the supply chain with emphasis on food waste prior to consumption, and also food rescue through charities.

A number of global trends and there effect on packaging development for reducing food waste was identified and analysed, these include:

Longer supply chains-With longer supply chains there are increased risks of product damage which make the packaging even more critical. Distribution packaging should provide better protection and shelf life for fresh produce as it moves from the farm to the processor, wholesaler or retailer. This may require the development of tailored solutions for individual products. This also requires more collaboration between manufacturers and retailers to improve the industry’s understanding of food waste in the supply chain. More use of intelligent packaging and data sharing can be useful .

More on-line shopping- Online expenditure in Australia was estimated to be around $8.4 billion in 2010 and is forecast to reach $26.9 billion by 2016. Online shopping requires more secondary packaging to protect the product during transport from the retail or manufacturer to the household, but it doesn’t need to be ‘shelf ready’ which may save resources. This increases the amount of packaging requiring recycling in the home but there could be some potential benefits for food waste.

Consumption of meals out of the home- This trend shifts waste away from the home to a restaurant and/or processing facility and may give both pros and cons for reducing food waste and how packaging are recycled.    

More small households- Product and packaging development need to cater for smaller households. Single and smaller serve products will reduce waste by meeting the needs of single and two person households, however this need to be environmentally analysed in relation to increased amount of packaging. . 

More convenience- The trend from loose fresh produce to more pre-packed and processed food products has implications for packaging. With a better primary packaging a simpler and less robust secondary packaging may be sufficient. This may require adoption of new packaging materials and technologies, such as modified atmosphere packaging and oxygen scavengers, to extend the shelf life of foods.

Food recovery for charity- It is important with distribution packaging that supports recovery of surplus and unsaleable fresh produce from farms and redirects it to food rescue organisations. These packaging systems will need to be flexible to accommodate the transport of bulk quantities from farm to food recovery organisations, as well as smaller orders from distribution centres to individual charities. The issue need to be addressed when developing new secondary packaging.

The packaging itself also needs to be recoverable to minimise overall environmental impacts in the country where it is consumed.