Thinking Outside the Box

To assess the environmental impact of packaging for fresh produce, food waste must be a key consideration. This article highlights the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate sustainable packaging options like paperboard. By focusing on reducing food waste and minimizing environmental impact while preserving food quality, LCA offers a comprehensive approach to packaging design and selection.

Food waste has become a critical concern. As part of the revision of the waste framework directive adopted by the European Parliament on 13 March 2024, binding national waste reduction targets have been set. By 31 December 2030, food processing and manufacturing must reduce waste by at least 20%, while retail, restaurants, food services and households must achieve a 40% reduction, based on 2020 baseline^{(1, 2)}.

Food waste and loss is a systemic problem that needs to be addressed from farm to fork. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), approximately 14% of the world's food is lost annually between harvest and the retail market (2019), while 17% is wasted at the retail and consumer levels (2021)⁽³⁾. The perishable nature of fruit and vegetables significantly contributes to food waste during the consumption stage. Considering the different food groups, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated in 2021 that to reduce the impact of food losses and waste, the focus should primarily be on meat, cereals and fresh fruits and vegetables, as these are highly resource-intensive⁽⁴⁾.

Addressing this challenge is crucial to feeding a growing population. Reducing food loss and waste is part of UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 which, among other goals, aims to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along with production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses. But it is also fundamental to deliver on EU climate commitments in line with the EU Green Deal. Indeed, different sources^{(5, 6)} indicate that food production is responsible for in the range of a quarter to a third of worldwide global greenhouse gases emissions. In turn (figure 1), the EC estimates that 16% of European greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions are due to food loss and waste.

Packaging plays a key role in food waste prevention strategies by ensuring packed products have a longer shelf life and are transported without damage to the consumer, especially considering that the resources used to make the product are several times greater than those used to produce the packaging.

In this study - a collaboration between Ghent University and Graphic Packaging International (Graphic Packaging) within the context of the Master of Science in Sustainable Food Packaging - we investigated how changes in fresh produce waste patterns affect environmental impacts when considering different types of packaging. . This is a fundamental question that is gaining traction in academic research. However, given its complexity, it is not always included in the scope of life cycle assessments (LCAs) on industrial packaging. These are often limited to the direct impact of the production and disposal of the packaging, dismissing the indirect impact of food loss and waste, even though these may be of greater magnitude. To this end, a recent study from Graphic Packaging (10) examined the mechanisms leading to a longer shelf-life for grape and cherry tomatoes when packed in paperboard trays compared to plastic trays. Similar observations were returned for grapes although more extensive studies could be needed and there could be variations depending on the compared packaging, storage conditions, etc.

The purpose of this study was to assess the environmental sustainability of grape packaging. The primary causes of grape deterioration are through fungi/yeast growth as well as water loss and loss/damage of individual grapes in transport. A cradle-to-grave study with a cut-off end-of-life assignment methodology was followed. The LCA was conducted according to the international standard ISO 14040/44 using EF 3.0 method. While other LCA indicators were also calculated, only the main impacts on land use and climate change potential will be discussed in this paper.

The environmental impacts of different consumer packaging were compared. As summarized below, the studied scenarios included different materials, paperboard and PET (polyethylene terephthalate) trays of similar size, use of virgin vs. recycled PET (rPET), and variable food waste in the use phase. Note that regenerated cellulose lids can be specified to meet the plastic-free requirements of the previously discussed AGEC⁶ law in France, but the lack of suitable data in the LCA database did not allow this comparison. The background data used was mainly from the ecoinvent® database, complemented by primary data from Graphic Packaging and its paperboard supplier where appropriate.

A functional unit (FU), as a standardised and quantified measure, represents the function of the studied system. It serves as the foundational reference for all calculations in impact assessment. In this study, the FU was fixed at 400g of grapes consumed at home, which means that a greater amount of grapes (leading to increasing all upstream unit processes including packaging and any other resource used) would need to be sourced in case there is additional food waste at any point of the supply chain.

The converting phase, which involves transforming raw materials like paperboard into finished packaging products through processes such as printing, cutting, creasing, and gluing, used average input data from Graphic Packaging's operations. Production of the packaging was assumed to be in the UK. As grapes are imported seasonally from other parts of the world, a global grape production process from ecoinvent® was considered for this study. Some data gaps arose regarding the packaging filling phase, which is expected to be similar for both scenarios. Modelling the treatment of the waste packaging was based on average end-of-life data from Eurostat. This article aims to provide directional estimates and insights into the importance of including food waste in comparative LCA studies of packaging. However, the data presented should not be considered absolute, as variations in conclusions may occur. Comparisons should be specific to actual value chains and regions. There are also clear limitations of the study, such as limited availability of realistic input data on the upstream agricultural phase and transport of the grapes to the food packer, secondary data used for the plastic scenario, etc.

Fitness for purpose and shelf-life studies are the foundation of packaging validation when adopting a new solution. Nevertheless, food waste is not generally considered when performing industrial packaging LCAs. This study provides a methodological approach to ensure that packaging transition decisions enable a lower environmental burden from an overall food system point of view. In our studied case of packed grapes, the results showed that the paperboard tray (with plastic lid) can provide a lower climate change potential vs. the virgin plastic option as long as it does not lead to more than 9% of grapes being wasted. The land use indicator was however more in favor of the plastic alternative, even when considering no additional food waste.

Possible future improvements of the study would include:

I. uptake of primary data for the upstream stages of the production and provision of the grapes to the packer.

II. application of the life cycle assessment (LCA) model to actual shelf-life studies.

III. use of avoided burdens end-of-life assignment instead of cut-off to better account for the secondary materials value. The method could also be expanded to additional food categories.

This study confirms the importance of accounting for food waste based on LCA results when selecting packaging. Most environmentally beneficial solutions and thus regulations should vary on a case-to-case basis. The goals of different policy files should be balanced to ensure the overall transition to a low-carbon circular economy. In the last five years, legislation regarding packaging and packaging waste has been rapidly evolving around the globe, in some instances considering single-use packaging (especially plastic) restrictions to deliver on circularity goals.