Periodic Reporting for period 3 - GLOPACK (Granting society with LOw environmental impact innovative PACKaging)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-03-01 bis 2021-11-30
GLOPACK aims to support users and consumers’ access to innovative packaging solutions enabling the reduction and circular management of food and food packaging wastes. To address the dual challenge of minimizing food waste and loss while fighting plastic pollution, the project is focusing on solutions that are biodegradable in natural environment (e.g. soils) and bringing new functionalities to enhance the packaging usage benefit. Specifically, the project aims to:
- Scale up production of microbial polyesters, (P(HB-co-HV)) produced from agricultural and agro-food residues as feedstock, using eco-efficient conversion process,
- Provide to the food industry with a range of finalized food packaging made of formulated PHBV with tailored active functionalities that match specific food requirements (quality and safety preservation) and packaging circularity (home-compostable and biodegradable),
- Enable simple and fair tracking of food freshness status among all the food supply chain including consumers, using a RFID bio-based sensor,
- Enhance stakeholders’ ability to make informed choices on sustainable packaging innovations using decision aided software and sustainability indicators,
- Anticipate market acceptance by evaluating and analysing the preferences, acceptances, and expectations of the stakeholders of the food packaging value chain in term of food packaging innovations.
- Scale up production of microbial polyesters, (P(HB-co-HV)) produced from agricultural and agro-food residues as feedstock, using eco-efficient conversion process,
- Provide to the food industry with a range of finalized food packaging made of formulated PHBV with tailored active functionalities that match specific food requirements (quality and safety preservation) and packaging circularity (home-compostable and biodegradable),
- Enable simple and fair tracking of food freshness status among all the food supply chain including consumers, using a RFID bio-based sensor,
- Enhance stakeholders’ ability to make informed choices on sustainable packaging innovations using decision aided software and sustainability indicators,
- Anticipate market acceptance by evaluating and analysing the preferences, acceptances, and expectations of the stakeholders of the food packaging value chain in term of food packaging innovations.
The GLOPACK food packaging material is based on poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3- hydroxyvalerate), PHBV, a microbial polyester that is fully bio-based (but non-food based) and fully biodegradable in soil and home-compost. The GLOPACK PHBV is produced by mixed microbial cultures from fermentable organic residues (corncob or fruit juice residues) at two pilot plants. Both processes were optimized to achieve a production at TRL 6 at the end of the project. More than 80 kg of raw polymer were produced in total, about 50 kg after extraction. GLOPACK polymer with ~18% HV content was found suitable for production of rigid containers by injection moulding after blending with 20% of polybutylene succinate, but with a too narrow range of processability for further industrial production.
Further tests were performed with commercial PHBV with 3% of HV with lab-scale thermoforming and pilot-scale injection moulding. Over the whole project’s duration, ~ 300 running meters of formulated commercial PHBV were extruded and ~ 150 thermoformed trays were thermoformed. A total of ~ 3000 trays and pots were injected. PHBV material are more easily processable using injection moulding than thermoforming. ~ 280 cups of PHBV containing about 2% of ethyl lauroyl arginate (LAE) as anti-microbial agent were injected for further shelf-life tests. Shelf-life tests, conducted at lab-scale on fresh cheese, beef meat and veggie ready-to-eat food confirmed the suitability of PHBV cups and trays produced to pack food under modified atmosphere. Packaging brittleness must be nevertheless reduced for further industrialisation.
The sensor-RFID tag provides information about the food quality status through detection of internal gas composition changes in the headspace. The RFID system is supported with an Android IOS compatible mobile application to visualise the signal and helps the user to decide whether the product is still consumable or not.
The GLOPACK modelling tools and Decision Support System help stakeholders to make informed and reasoned choices on the food packaging solution (e.g. material, modified atmosphere) that best matches their requirements. The tool encompasses a comprehensive database of packaging materials and their key parameters along with additional qualitative data such as consumer surveys to allow for ranking of packaging materials based on those most likely to be accepted by an average consumer.
Market study have revealed that consumers are ready for GLOPACK innovations. Globally, the more sensitive consumers are to environmental issues, the more they prefer GLOPACK packaging. In case of organic veggie food, consumers appear more concerned by the environmental aspect of the packaging probably because they, in majority, already buy organic products for this reason. Cost is also clearly important: an increase up to 25 cts appears to be acceptable, independently of the type of product (for an original price of food products from 2€ to 6€), this extra-cost is below the price increase expected for such product packed in the new packaging concept. A market strategy could be thus to focus on niche markets of high value-added products (e.g. organic food, cosmetics) that could afford to put on the market more expensive packaging material.
Further tests were performed with commercial PHBV with 3% of HV with lab-scale thermoforming and pilot-scale injection moulding. Over the whole project’s duration, ~ 300 running meters of formulated commercial PHBV were extruded and ~ 150 thermoformed trays were thermoformed. A total of ~ 3000 trays and pots were injected. PHBV material are more easily processable using injection moulding than thermoforming. ~ 280 cups of PHBV containing about 2% of ethyl lauroyl arginate (LAE) as anti-microbial agent were injected for further shelf-life tests. Shelf-life tests, conducted at lab-scale on fresh cheese, beef meat and veggie ready-to-eat food confirmed the suitability of PHBV cups and trays produced to pack food under modified atmosphere. Packaging brittleness must be nevertheless reduced for further industrialisation.
The sensor-RFID tag provides information about the food quality status through detection of internal gas composition changes in the headspace. The RFID system is supported with an Android IOS compatible mobile application to visualise the signal and helps the user to decide whether the product is still consumable or not.
The GLOPACK modelling tools and Decision Support System help stakeholders to make informed and reasoned choices on the food packaging solution (e.g. material, modified atmosphere) that best matches their requirements. The tool encompasses a comprehensive database of packaging materials and their key parameters along with additional qualitative data such as consumer surveys to allow for ranking of packaging materials based on those most likely to be accepted by an average consumer.
Market study have revealed that consumers are ready for GLOPACK innovations. Globally, the more sensitive consumers are to environmental issues, the more they prefer GLOPACK packaging. In case of organic veggie food, consumers appear more concerned by the environmental aspect of the packaging probably because they, in majority, already buy organic products for this reason. Cost is also clearly important: an increase up to 25 cts appears to be acceptable, independently of the type of product (for an original price of food products from 2€ to 6€), this extra-cost is below the price increase expected for such product packed in the new packaging concept. A market strategy could be thus to focus on niche markets of high value-added products (e.g. organic food, cosmetics) that could afford to put on the market more expensive packaging material.
In the frame of GLOPACK two different agro-food residues have been chosen to produce PHBV material. It was demonstrated that production of HV bio precursors could be well controlled during the acidogenic fermentation of the feedstock which allows to fine tune the PHBV monomeric composition. Under the optimum conditions it is possible to produce around 3 kg of PHBV per month with a production yield of about 200 kg per ton of dry matter, the highest productivity never achieved before using fruit waste as feedstock.
Increase HV content up to 18% has permitted to significantly decrease the melting point of the polymer. However, the mechanical properties of the material do not fulfil the requirements for industrial processing. Purification was identified as the process that influences the final ultimate properties of the polymer. Blending strategy has permitted to produce some cups by injection moulding. Oxygen transmission rate of these cups was comparable to that of the pure PHBV material and is compatible with requirements of fresh and processed food products packed under modified packaging. Thermoformed and injection moulded cups produced from commercial PHBV (with 3% HV) were meeting the current performance specification to protect the shelf life of fresh processed food (i.e. cheese and falafel) and fresh beef. Besides it was possible to incorporate antimicrobials in the PHBV material to perform first orienting assessments with the fresh cheese and falafel.
The industrial production of RFID labels and the development of a suitable smartphone Application permitted to have a user-friendly method to detect the shelf-life evolution of fresh beef. In this way, the logistic chain and/or the final consumer can have an easy-to-use system to monitor the freshness of the product, in store or in the private house fridge, without damaging and opening the packaging, which was never achieved before. The combination of active and intelligent packaging can be considered as a further progress, to guarantee consumer safety and to prevent food wastes.
The virtual market replication tests showed that consumers are ready to accept biodegradable packaging from agro waste streams for food products. Further optimisation and upscaling of the production process is still needed to improve environmental impact of the PHBV based material still hampered by hotspots (raw polymer production) and decrease overall costs.
Finally, the GLOPACK modelling tools and decision support systems are promising tools that could be successfully introduced on the markets once brought beyond the current TRL6-7 stage. These type of tools are unique and do not exist on the market yet.
Increase HV content up to 18% has permitted to significantly decrease the melting point of the polymer. However, the mechanical properties of the material do not fulfil the requirements for industrial processing. Purification was identified as the process that influences the final ultimate properties of the polymer. Blending strategy has permitted to produce some cups by injection moulding. Oxygen transmission rate of these cups was comparable to that of the pure PHBV material and is compatible with requirements of fresh and processed food products packed under modified packaging. Thermoformed and injection moulded cups produced from commercial PHBV (with 3% HV) were meeting the current performance specification to protect the shelf life of fresh processed food (i.e. cheese and falafel) and fresh beef. Besides it was possible to incorporate antimicrobials in the PHBV material to perform first orienting assessments with the fresh cheese and falafel.
The industrial production of RFID labels and the development of a suitable smartphone Application permitted to have a user-friendly method to detect the shelf-life evolution of fresh beef. In this way, the logistic chain and/or the final consumer can have an easy-to-use system to monitor the freshness of the product, in store or in the private house fridge, without damaging and opening the packaging, which was never achieved before. The combination of active and intelligent packaging can be considered as a further progress, to guarantee consumer safety and to prevent food wastes.
The virtual market replication tests showed that consumers are ready to accept biodegradable packaging from agro waste streams for food products. Further optimisation and upscaling of the production process is still needed to improve environmental impact of the PHBV based material still hampered by hotspots (raw polymer production) and decrease overall costs.
Finally, the GLOPACK modelling tools and decision support systems are promising tools that could be successfully introduced on the markets once brought beyond the current TRL6-7 stage. These type of tools are unique and do not exist on the market yet.