Packaging-Related Food Losses and Waste: An Overview of Drivers and Issues

TLDR

Packaging—predominantly single‑use plastic—has been criticized as a symbol of a throwaway culture, yet its primary role is to protect food, and with 30 % of global production lost or wasted, optimizing packaging could reduce losses, especially in developing countries where spoilage occurs before reaching consumers and in developed countries where household waste is driven by inappropriate sizes and difficult‑to‑empty designs, a protective function often overlooked in sustainability debates. The review aims to show that appropriate packaging can protect food, extend shelf life, and help food safely reach households, particularly by addressing drivers, issues, and implications of packaging‑related food losses and waste. The authors review drivers, issues, and implications of packaging‑related food losses and waste and discuss how these insights can be implemented in life‑cycle assessments.

Abstract

Packaging is often criticized as a symbol of today’s throwaway society, as it is mostly made of plastic, which is in itself quite controversial, and is usually used only once. However, as packaging’s main function is to protect its content and 30% of all food produced worldwide is lost or wasted along the supply chain, optimized packaging may be one of the solutions to reduce this staggering amount. Developing countries struggle with losses in the supply chain before food reaches the consumer. Here, appropriate packaging may help to protect food and prolong its shelf life so that it safely reaches these households. In developed countries, food tends to be wasted rather at the household’s level due to wasteful behavior. There, packaging may be one of the drivers due to inappropriate packaging sizes and packaging that is difficult to empty. When discussing the sustainability of packaging, its protective function is often neglected and only revolves around the type and amount of material used for production. In this review, drivers, issues, and implications of packaging-related food losses and waste (FLW) are discussed, as well as the implication for the implementation in life cycle assessments (LCA).