Food Innovation Australia’s national food waste strategy argues reducing household food waste will require consumer behaviour change coupled with technical developments in packaging, and recommends improved portioning and better food date labelling.
According to Stop Food Waste Australia, a partnership tasked with implementing the waste reduction roadmap, about half of all food waste is fresh produce.
The partnership says it aims to improve packaging and product labelling, and “Transform surplus food and food processing wastes into new upcycled food products and ingredients”.
The Australian Fresh Produce Alliance also says that while packaging can extend the shelf life of fresh food, it must reduce packaging and find ways to produce plastic packaging from recycled materials.
That’s exactly what Federation University food scientist Dylan Liu hopes to achieve by turning food waste into food packaging.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Scientists say they have found a way to divert food from landfill and convert it into biodegradable plastic wraps and cellophanes.
Almost 8 million tonnes of food worth about $40 billion are wasted each year in Australia, through on-farm and supply chain losses, in restaurants and supermarkets.
Nanocellulose is a tiny cellulose fibre that Dr Liu says is strong and flexible, making it ideal for food storage because it can be used to create cling film and other transparent packaging.
“Quality and safety are so important in the food industry, so if we can monitor that more closely it can potentially help people improve their health,” Dr Liu says.
Nanocellulose derived from food waste is biodegradable and safe in a range of fields, Dr Liu says, and the by-products of the production process can be used as a liquid fertiliser and solid feed for livestock.
And while Dr Liu says nanocellulose production isn’t the answer to all of Australia’s waste problems, it could go some way towards repurposing food that would otherwise be discarded.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!