The Importance of Packaging Functions for Food Waste of Different Products in Households

Fredrik Wikström, Helén Williams, Jakob Trischler and Zane Rowe
Additional contact information
Fredrik Wikström: Environmental and Energy Systems, CTF Service Research Center, Karlstad University, S-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
Helén Williams: Environmental and Energy Systems, CTF Service Research Center, Karlstad University, S-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
Jakob Trischler: Environmental and Energy Systems, CTF Service Research Center, Karlstad University, S-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
Zane Rowe: Environmental and Energy Systems, CTF Service Research Center, Karlstad University, S-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: The United Nations sustainability goal SDG 12.3 is to reduce the amount of food that is wasted by half, due to environmental and social reasons. This paper aims to analyse the most important packaging functions that affect food waste in households for different products, as the reason for wastage can be expected to differ between different products. The reasons for food wastage of different categories and products have been compiled through literature studies, and possible improvements of packaging functions to reduce food waste have been identified. In addition, an expert workshop judged the most important packaging functions to reduce food waste for a number of products. They also discussed the obstacles and possibilities to realise the packaging improvements. This study confirms that how packaging functions influence food waste on the product level is a highly unexplored question. Most likely, there is high potential to reduce food waste through better adaptions of packaging functions to user needs and habits. Both the literature study and the expert workshop show that less food per pack and better information regarding food safety and storage have high potential to reduce food waste, but also that product specific considerations are necessary.

Keywords: food waste; packaging functions; packaging development; household food waste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2641/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2641/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:9:p:2641-:d:229280

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().