World packaging industry wages war on food waste

THE global packaging industry is tackling the worldwide wastage of more than 1.3-billion metric tonnes of food every year with innovative products resulting from intense research and development.

Jacques Coetzee, export manager of Groningen, Netherlands-based food company NNZ, told a Produce Marketing Association conference in Somerset West on Wednesday that the packaging industry had "declared war on food waste" as the world faced up to the challenge of feeding a rapidly increasing population.

"More than a third of food produced is wasted. It implies also wasted energy, pesticides and increased pollution (from dumped food)," Mr Coetzee said. "The wasted food would fill more than 120-million 40-foot containers and require more than 13,000 of the world’s largest container ships to carry it."

And while much of the waste occurs at retail and consumer level in industrialised countries, poor packaging and sub-standard cold-storage facilities in the developing world add a great deal to the problem.

Mr Coetzee said that packaging could help reduce this waste by producing stronger and lighter packaging materials and extending the shelf life of produce.

"Various products need different conditions for longer shelf lives and packaging has been developed to meet this need," he said.

For example, packaging to prevent the greening and sprouting of potatoes has been introduced, while packaging of some products even improve on their condition from their pre-packed state.

Packaging of huge amounts of produce for export has also been greatly improved with the introduction of "simple" innovations that translate into "huge reductions in waste".

Mr Coetzee said there had been a "packhouse revolution" in the industry that was driving down costs and cutting wastage.

"The materials are better and are produced quicker, getting the products to market faster. It is part of the huge investments and developments taking place in packaging," he said. "Thinner yarns and better weaving of bags that still satisfy food safety regulations have reduced the weight of packaging material by 31% over the past five years and brought down costs."

Ralph von Veh, president of the Packaging Council of South Africa, which says it represents 70% of the country’s packaging companies, told the conference the local packaging industry was worth about R60bn a year and employed about 60,000 people.

Source: BDLive (http://goo.gl/fB0F5B)