Loose produce or packaging innovation

By Amir Gross, CEO of Treetop Biopak

In the effort to reduce food and plastic waste, some organisations and retailers are now proposing a ban on plastic packaging for uncut fresh produce. Fresh fruit and vegetables have been sold loose for around 10,000 years, since the agricultural revolution — and it’s important to remember that packaging is progress.

Packaging for fresh produce plays a vital role in our modern food system with increasingly extended global supply chains. It prolongs shelf life, reduces food waste, provides hygienic delivery, and conveys information to consumers. Enhancing the efficiency of the packing and selling processes helps us feed a growing population. Without packaging, much of our food would spoil before it ever reached the table.

The ‘myth’ of loose produce

Here is a point often missed in the loose vs. packed debate: loose produce arrives packed to the retailers — in cardboard, in liners, and often in large plastic bags. It is unpacked behind the scenes. At some budget high-street supermarkets, the box and liner are placed directly on the shelf, and customers pick “loose” products. Ironically, the large liner bag used for this purpose often weighs more than the small cluster bags it replaces.

On the produce packer side, an order for ‘loose produce’ often translates to higher packaging costs, loss of efficiency, manual labour, food waste, and higher transport costs. At the retailer, there are also higher labour costs (cleaning, replenishing, sorting, and displaying), product damage and dehydration, hygiene and quality control issues and lower efficiency due to slower checkout.

Removing the pack in the supply chain doesn’t mean no packing at the end. The consumer at the supermarket has to pack their loose produce – the apples, carrots, potatoes, etc - into something to weigh, label, and take them to the till and home. Be it paper or plastic, the packaging issue is not resolved and perhaps made worse with consumers using more packaging per product.

All these mean more food waste and higher costs in the supply chain.

The science of produce packaging

Plastic packaging has become an integral part of the produce industry because it meets the requirements of a demanding supply chain for sensitive perishable products. Accordingly, packing fresh produce has become a science, with each crop requiring particular care.

A cucumber, for instance, prefers to be shrink-wrapped tightly, extending its shelf life from two days to seven. Leafy salads like to live in a “bubble” of air in their bags, so they do not crush and stay crisp. Mushrooms continue to grow after they are packed, and they want a stretchy wrap to accommodate.

Macro or micro-perforations, controlled atmosphere, gas flushing, moisture balance, ventilation, protection, and other solutions are all carefully considered for each fruit and vegetable. They are not trivial details — they are the result of years of research into freshness, safety, and presentation, adding value by protecting food and reducing waste.

The limits of plastic

The real challenge is not the use of packaging but what we are using to pack it with.

Fresh produce is a short shelf-life product, where the pack cannot be reused and is contaminated with organic residue at the end of use. Plastic, on the other hand, is a long-lasting, durable material that is hard to reuse, collect, segregate and recycle. Contamination makes recycling more difficult.   

This is particularly difficult with flexible packaging, which is commonly used for fresh produce packaging. The multiplicity of materials, lamination, contamination, and the low value of the material make flexible packaging notoriously difficult to recycle in a commercially viable manner.

The disparity between the packed goods and the packaging material, in a high-volume market, inevitably results in large quantities of contaminated packaging waste that is difficult to collect and recycle.

So, the question to ask is: are there alternative materials that would provide the benefits of packaging, without the packaging waste challenge?

Perishable packaging

Alternative solutions are already available, and most produce packaging can be replaced today with compostable alternatives that would return safely to nature after use. The packaging is as perishable as the goods.

Compostable bioplastic films can largely replace flexible packaging. These provide similar functionality as plastic — protection, shelf life, presentation, machinability -  with the advantage that they are designed to decompose alongside food waste, leaving behind nutrient-rich compost. Examples of available solutions are produce bags, flow wraps, shrink wrap, nets, fruit stickers, box liners and more.

Some rigid plastic materials, used for produce punnets and trays, can also be replaced with wood or paper pulp, PLA, paper or cardboard. These perform the same functions but have a much better end-of-life result, through paper recycling or composting. used for punnets, trays and boxes

The technology is still developing and cannot always be applied. We are still learning and overcoming challenges relating to machinability, aesthetics, and cost. But many producers and retailers are already benefiting from these innovations and implementing them to reduce plastic pollution without compromising on product shelf life. It should be embraced more closely by manufacturers, retailers and regulators.

Progress means better packaging, not no packaging

Some produce, in some settings, would make sense selling loose (in the loose definition of ‘loose’). But many fruits and vegetables, sold at high volumes in retail and foodservice, will benefit from packaging with a better End-Of-Life solution. Instead of discarding packaging, we should redefine it — making it nature-friendly, sustainable, and compatible with organic recycling.