When consumer sentiment on packaging is seen to be at its lowest ebb and readily demonised in the media, it is refreshing to be reminded of the valuable role packaging plays in food waste reduction.
It's also important to recognise the poor job our industry has done in communicating that role to consumers, councils and our policy makers, that in some food categories ..."more packaging = less food waste".
This was the topic of discussion at an enjoyable and informative seminar held on the last day of FoodTech PackTech in Auckland last week, run by the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) and Packaging New Zealand, entitled “Fighting Food Waste, Save Food Packaging & Sustainable Packaging Design”. [More on the AIP education and training in NZ here.]
This seminar was a platform to share and inform the industry of those facts and highlight the excellent work underway by not only our professional bodies, but the driven entrepreneurial businesses across Australia and New Zealand that use the protective power of packaging to launch sustainable solutions to local and global markets.
Keith Chessell, covering for an ill Dr Karli Verghese, delivered her presentation on “The role packaging plays in minimising food waste”. After exploring the varied functional roles packaging plays in protecting the food product from production to consumer, Chessell challenged one of the current consumer misconceptions that “all plastic packaging in the produce sector is wasteful”. Referencing research conducted by Karli Verghese, Helen Lewis, Simon Lockrey and Helén Williams, it highlighted the paradox that “more packaging means less food waste” – a concept that is still a struggle for our industry to clearly communicate and consumers to grasp.
This concept was further validated when considering the “Average Carbon Footprint of a Food Product, Processing & Packaging” and noting the small proportion packaging plays in impacting this. In large markets such as dairy and meat, packaging’s environmental footprint represents only 2% and <1% respectively. Despite this small footprint, correctly engineered packaging is often the primary component that ensures the safe delivery and maintains the high quality of the food product delivered to the consumer in the supply chain.
Continuing the topic of food waste, Deborah Manning, CEO of KiwiHarvest, highlighted again the demoralising indictment on human society that one third of our global food production ends up in waste with an incomprehensible 40% of that being diverted to landfill before it even reaches the consumer. In APEC countries alone, 42% of all fruit and vegetables is lost in production, processing and packaging. On the commercial side (i.e restaurants), 60% of all the food thrown out is still edible! Sobering numbers indeed.
Thankfully this is where brands such as KiwiHarvest have seen a sustainable business opportunity to capture and divert this high-quality food from the consumer waste chain and deliver it to the New Zealand families in need. In New Zealand alone, 19.8% of the population is not able to eat properly and faces an ever-growing issue with food security (defined as access to nutritional, culturally acceptable food). KiwiHarvest is a business prepared to close that divide. Similar in model to Australia’s Second Bite, KiwiHarvest is doing its bit to meet the United Nations Global Sustainability Development guidelines of halving per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels by 2030.
My personal takeaway from this, is a human one, and one beautifully captured by Manning – “We have a moral imperative that if we are wasting food that is edible and people are hungry, we should be feeding them this food”.
“Food waste has a value, yet it is not being given a value”.
One could argue that this misconception is also being applied to packaging at the point of disposal.
Sharon Humphreys, executive director of Packaging NZ, kicked off by touching on the poor perception packaging has in the community and then reflecting on the various methods the global industry has reduced its environmental impact, from the obvious lightweighting to the more valuable and innovative adaptation of a circular economy mindset.
The highlight was Sharon’s focus on a cucumber packaging case study, conducted by Cryovac Sealed Air, which presented an example of positive change in behaviour once consumers were “educated” on the role packaging plays in reducing food waste.
By simply applying a label on the wrap that draws attention to the cucumber's increased shelf life and quality, the buying behaviour leaped from a low 40% unmarked, to 70% when marked – a great example of how brand owner messaging is so powerful in value education. With the increasing battle for brand real estate on packs, this is a simple lesson on market share ROI if focused on “education versus selling”.
Sharon’s passion was clearly evident in her defence of the value of packaging and delivered one of the memorable quotes of the session – “Stop looking at what packaging is and start looking at what packaging does.”
Changed behaviour once educated
On the consumer education piece, Planet Ark’s Alejandra Laclette explained how the organisation is in the final stages of preparing its “Right Label Right Bin” consumer educational campaign, commencing late October. This will focus on the ARL (Australian Recycling Label) and help consumers make better choices and improve recycling habits. Current APCO (Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation) members have direct access to create an ARL for their packaging once they have completed a PREP (Packaging Recyclability Environmental Portal) report to determine its suitability for kerb-side recycling in Australia and New Zealand.
Laclette highlighted that since PREP’s launch in March, 112 companies now have access (my company qDesign Enterprises being one of them) and since the ARL’s launch in May, 49 companies have completed theirs on pack. Although not yet mandated, this voluntary system has been accepted widely with a high growth trajectory and is yet another tool for industry to do its part in educating the consumer.
The final session moved from industry bodies and specialists to an exciting array of new brands and start-ups who have leveraged the value of packaging and its performance characteristics to launch PIDA (Packaging Innovation & Design Award) winning innovations. Presented were a myriad successful product and packaging examples incorporating food waste minimisation, sustainability, innovation, human-centred design and the Circular Economy ethos by such brands like WoolCool Australia, Fressure, Tru2U and Feed My FurBaby – all displayed on the AIP and Pack NZ stand at the show.
What was clear to me from the seminar, and the show overall, was that once we collectively pick up our game in measuring, understanding and communicating packaging's role and not only educating the consumer but changing behaviour, the planet will thank us across the board
ABOUT THE WRITER: Michael Grima is director of Packaging Design consultancy qDesign Enterprises & Customer Experience consultancy The Pack Collective, but simply is just a concerned human who has buy-in on leaving a better, sustainably minded world for his growing children.
