Bauer Anna-Sophia, Leppik Kärt, Galić Kata, Anestopoulos Ioannis, Panayiotidis Mihalis I, Agriopoulou Sofia, Milousi Maria, Uysal-Unalan Ilke, Varzakas Theodoros, Krauter Victoria
Packaging and Resource Management, Department Applied Life Sciences, FH Campus Wien, 1030 Vienna, Austria.
Center of Food and Fermentation Technologies, Akadeemia tee 15a, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia.
Foods. 2022 Feb 26;11(5):697. doi: 10.3390/foods11050697.
In both public and private sectors, one can notice a strong interest in the topic of sustainable food and packaging. For a long time, the spotlight for optimization was placed on well-known examples of high environmental impacts, whether regarding indirect resource use (e.g., meat, dairy) or problems in waste management. Staple and hedonistic foods such as cereals and confectionary have gained less attention. However, these products and their packaging solutions are likewise of worldwide ecologic and economic relevance, accounting for high resource input, production amounts, as well as food losses and waste. This review provides a profound elaboration of the status quo in cereal and confectionary packaging, essential for practitioners to improve sustainability in the sector. Here, we present packaging functions and properties along with related product characteristics and decay mechanisms in the subcategories of cereals and cereal products, confectionary and bakery wares alongside ready-to-eat savories and snacks. Moreover, we offer an overview to formerly and recently used packaging concepts as well as established and modern shelf-life extending technologies, expanding upon our knowledge to thoroughly understand the packaging's purpose; we conclude that a comparison of the environmental burden share between product and packaging is necessary to properly derive the need for action(s), such as packaging redesign.
在公共部门和私营部门，人们都能明显看到对可持续食品和包装这一话题的浓厚兴趣。长期以来，优化的重点都放在了那些对环境影响巨大的知名例子上，无论是涉及间接资源使用（如肉类、奶制品）还是废物管理问题。诸如谷物和糖果等主食和享乐型食品受到的关注较少。然而，这些产品及其包装解决方案同样具有全球生态和经济意义，它们占用了大量资源，产量巨大，同时还存在食品损失和浪费的问题。本综述对谷物和糖果包装的现状进行了深入阐述，这对从业者提高该领域的可持续性至关重要。在此，我们介绍了谷物和谷物制品、糖果和烘焙食品以及即食咸味小吃和零食等子类别的包装功能和特性，以及相关的产品特征和变质机制。此外，我们概述了以前和最近使用的包装概念以及已有的和现代的延长保质期技术，以加深我们对包装目的的全面理解；我们得出结论，有必要比较产品和包装之间的环境负担份额，以便正确确定采取行动（如重新设计包装）的必要性。
