Start making sense about packaging
Public ignorance about the role played by food packaging could lead to the adoption of regulatory policies that produce more waste, an expert in the field has warned.
“The primary role [of packaging] is to contain, protect and preserve food,” said Dick Searle chief executive The Packaging Federation at a conference last week on the future of the food and drink industry organised by the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum.
“But of course it’s very visible and it’s very little understood by consumers. But the fact is modern society - cities - could not exist without packaging,” said Searle, who also sits on the government’s Food Chain Emergency Liaison Group.
He reported that packaging made up less than 2% of the UK’s total gross carbon footprint but gave a negative net figure when the amount of waste it saved was taken into account. And it uses 1.5% of the nation’s resources.
He cited the example of meat packaging, which commonly uses composite films and modified atmospheres to ensure a shelf-life of two weeks. Without this approach, the shelf-life would be just a few days and far more red meat, which has a very high carbon footprint, would be wasted, he argued.
“Frankly, the political and media focus on packaging seems to be driven by what consumers see in their bins,” he noted. “They’re not remembering that the reason for all that packaging is the goods that they’ve bought.
“The frightening statistic is that the environmental impact of food thrown away in the home has 15 times the impact of packaging waste.”
He went on to say: “It’s about time we started to look at the science. Cheap political shots at packaging are really interfering with scientific realities. Politics are now more important than food security.”
Searle argued that food waste up the supply chain, which is as high as 40-50% in some developing countries, could be reduced to the 3% common in the UK by more appropriate use of packaging. “How does anybody think that is going to be solved without using modern packaging and modern distribution?” he asked.
