Wageningen developed a new packaging film that adapts to changing temperatures

?It was a stroke of luck. Eelke Westra?s colleagues at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research were working on a film with high barrier properties, but when tested, the material they had developed proved as leaky as a sieve. ?We were extremely happy about that. We saw application potential as packaging film and we carried on developing the idea,? says Westra, Post-Harvest Quality programme manager. ?Step by step, we arrived at a new dynamic packaging material that is highly suitable for the packaging of fruit and vegetables in a modified atmosphere.? Paul de Jager is the author of the article published by Wageningen World, explaining about the new material. In the food supply chain, much effort goes into keeping temperatures consistently low, to slow down decay. This is not entirely successful. Fruit and vegetables can be exposed to higher temperatures in transit, and even in the shop. Fresh products are exposed to temperature fluctuations after purchase too. A shopping bag can get very hot on a summer?s day.?And at home, consumers do not always store food in the best place. The new packaging material adapts to this, extending the shelf life of fruit and vegetables and thus preventing food waste. The new packaging material has the biggest effect on products with high respiration rates such as strawberries and mushrooms. Wageningen team is now talking to producers of packaging material. They see a market for this. The cost price will not be a limiting factor, thinks Westra. The raw materials are no more expensive and the manufacturing process is well-known. The new packaging material has a fossil component and a component made out of starch, which is biodegradable. Wageningen workd towards replacing the fossil component with biobased material as much as possible. But no matter how biobased it becomes, it will still be packaging, notes Westra. After use, it is waste, and we want as little waste as possible. And yet we do need to use it, as it has a protective function, which extends the shelf life of products. The packaging can be used for communication too. You can put a sticker on it with product information and a barcode. And the ecological footprint of the plastics used is considerably smaller than that of food that is needlessly thrown out. Source and full articleWageningen World 2020 (1): 28-29More informationwww.wur.eu/sustainablepackaging ?