A new report produced by APPMA and RMIT University says packaging and processing machinery used collaboratively can reduce food waste, and provides analysis of major trends and opportunities for the sector.
The Baseline Review Insights report on Opportunities for packaging and processing machinery and technologies to tackle food waste was produced by the Australian Packaging and Processing Machinery Association (APPMA) and RMIT University. The work has been supported by the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) whose activities are funded by the Australian Government's CRC program.
The report says that understanding how the Australian packaging and processing machinery sector can promote these technologies and services to the food industry, so it can realise new opportunities to reduce and/or transform food waste, is the challenge being addressed.
The authors recognised that across the food supply chain the use of some technologies and processes can directly result in food waste generation, including during harvesting and processing, in customising portion sizes, through product and date labelling, shelf-life extension, and product packaging.
For food producers it is often the type of packaging and processing machinery available that dictates how effectively resources are used, and the volumes of food waste produced. The report’s authors say that equipment manufacturers may not be aware of the critical role they play in reducing food waste.
The aim of the Opportunities for packaging and processing machinery and technologies to tackle food waste project is to consolidate the ways that Australian packaging and processing machinery can reduce and/or transform food waste and to provide equipment manufacturers with improved knowledge and understanding of the food waste challenges.
The report says that in isolation, a single initiative will not address the issue at scale, however, driving collaboration across the APPMA with the various packaging providers and processing companies can achieve this.
The report presents a global baseline literature review across academic and industry publications for APPMA, and provides a landscape study of relevant technologies and their (potential) impact on food waste and loss.
It says the existing literature strongly recommends a strategic approach that incorporates various aspects of the food supply chain, as well as considering investment costs, sustainability impact, and industry demand in the supply chain, rather than a piecemeal approach that implements a single technology at any given point in the supply chain.
This whole system approach is used by nearly a third of the papers reviewed. A quarter of the papers explore packaging solutions; nearly a quarter explore processing and manufacturing solutions; and roughly a tenth explores solutions related to transport, distribution and logistics.
Other parts of the food system — including on-farm, packing, retail, consumer and waste management — are the focus of between two and six per cent of the papers each. Much of the literature describes technologies throughout the supply chain that focus on the reduction and/or monitoring of microbial activity for extension of shelf life for the food product.
An emerging trend in the literature was Industry 4.0 technologies, which are used across the food supply chain, and include digital transformation technologies such as neural networks, blockchain, Internet of Things, sensors and RFID, and robotics.
The report concludes by saying that the literature shows that there are clear links between the identified processing and packaging technologies, and related machinery, and food waste or loss reduction.
It says while these technologies may be effective in addressing specific problems or leveraging specific opportunities for process efficiency and food loss and waste management, the overarching theme that emerges is that a whole-of-system approach to the integration of these technologies will provide substantially greater rewards than piecemeal
implementations.
The report, which took a year to compile, runs to 46 pages, and includes links to all the literature reviewed. You can download a full copy here.
