Project description
Food freshness through colour: edible inks for intelligent packaging
Over one billion tonnes of food are wasted annually because current packaging lacks real-time freshness monitoring. Traditional lab tests are time-consuming and unsuitable for widespread consumer use, while existing indicators often rely on unstable or synthetic dyes. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PhotonInk project will address this by developing food-safe, edible photonic inks that change colour in response to temperature and humidity. Using biopolymers and advanced printing techniques, PhotonInk will create visual sensors that can be assessed by the naked eye. Beyond engineering these materials, the project aims to demonstrate their safety and scalability for industrial use. Ultimately, PhotonInk seeks to reduce food waste and enhance transparency, fostering consumer trust and supporting a transition towards resilient, sustainable food systems.
Objective
Over 1 billion tonnes of food are wasted annually, with major losses from lack of real-time monitoring across the supply chain. Traditional packaging extends shelf life but does not actively indicate food quality. Current monitoring, such as microbial assays or lipid oxidation tests, are lab-bound, time-consuming, and unsuitable for consumer use. Intelligent packaging offers a disruptive alternative, providing low-cost, portable indicators of freshness. However, existing optical systems rely on synthetic dyes with poor stability, limited sensitivity, narrow colour ranges, and high costs, which hinder large-scale adoption.
PhotonInk addresses this challenge by pioneering food-safe, biopolymer-based photonic inks for intelligent packaging. These edible photonic structures are engineered to change colour reversibly in response to temperature and humidity, enabling real-time, naked-eye assessment. Unlike conventional dyes, photonic structures deliver vivid, tuneable structural colours with high sensitivity, photostability, and multiplexing capacity. Through particles confined self-assembly and direct ink writing, PhotonInk will integrate these responsive materials directly into packaging, allowing scalable, precise, and low-cost fabrication.
The project follows four key steps: design of edible biopolymer-based photonic structures, engineering of responsiveness to humidity and temperature, formulation of printable photonic inks, and demonstration of intelligent packaging indicators performance and safety. Thus, PhotonInk delivers affordable, eco-friendly, and high-performance visual indicators that align with the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy by reducing food waste, improving supply chain efficiency, and fostering consumer trust. Positioned within a rapidly expanding global market, this work offers strong exploitation potential, combining sustainability with technological innovation to support Europe’s transition towards resilient, safe, and transparent food systems.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
4715-330 Braga
Portugal
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.