Making perishable foods safe and available
Food packaging plays an important role in enhancing food systems resilience by protecting products, extending their shelf life, and helping reduce food waste from production to distribution and retail. This cannot be at the expense of the climate impact of food packaging, nor its circularity.
We are committed to increasing access to safe nutrition1 around the world through aseptic food processing and packaging solutions2 that enable long shelf life and preserve the quality and safety of perishable foods without the need for added preservatives or refrigeration.
Due to their high share of renewable materials (on average 70% paperboard), aseptic paper-based cartons score better on environmental performance compared to other packaging options for perishable liquid foods such as PET bottles and glass3. They are designed for recycling and are recyclable where collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure is in place, at scale.
Our targets towards 2030
We have set measurable targets tied to our pathways, that iterate our role in food systems transformation to accelerate change.
How scaling access to safe nutrition can contribute to more secure food systems?
We have collaborated with EY-Parthenon on a a series of white papers that explore the opportunities, key enablers and critical success factors for a preferred future by 2040, and outline global focus areas and collective actions to accelerate the transition.
References
1 Definition: Nutritional profile of packaged food assessed according to Health Star Rating system Health Star Rating
2 Sustainable food packaging is defined as a packaging that achieves its functional requirements with minimal environmental impact, that is made from responsibly sourced renewable or recycled materials, is recyclable, and has low carbon footprint in regards to manufacturing, production, shipping, and recycling.
3 83 g CO2 equivalents per litre (eq/l) compared to 430 g CO2 eq/l for single-use glass bottles, 156 CO2 eq/l for PET bottles and 100 g CO2 eq/l for reusable glass bottles. https://www.beveragecarton.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ACE-Circular_Analytics_ACE_report.pdf
4 Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2022). Circular Economy Introduction. Source: Ellenmacarthurfoundation.org, What is a circular economy? | Ellen MacArthur Foundation
5 Definition: Sustainable dairy is defined as a dairy industry that emits less greenhouse emissions by introducing technologies, equipment and best practices in production and processing to safeguard nutrition security and sustain a billion livelihoods for tomorrow, while helping secure a future for us all. Read more at Global Dairy platform
6 New Food sources is a term broadly referring to any food ingredient that lacks an established history of human consumption, or ingredients made from innovative new processes. Also referred to as “novel foods”. Precise legal definitions vary from region to region.