FEFCO, the European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers, has released a video discussing how good packaging can play a key role in tackling food waste in Europe.
The Brussels-headquartered organisation’s secretary general Angelika Christ says: “Packaging alone can’t solve the food waste problem but as part of a suite of tools, packaging is a key element to prevent food from spoiling and to keep it in perfect shape.”
FEFCO reports that 90 million tons of food is thrown away each year in Europe alone. Alongside the need to change consumer attitudes towards food, it says, protecting the food we have is crucial: “European food experts quote packaging as an important tool to help extend the shelf life of food.
“Even though Europeans implement packaging solutions to protect food and keep it fresh for longer, households still decide not to eat one third of the food they purchase. This costs every family in Europe €565 every year,” FEFCO states.
While popular thinking in recent years has pushed to reduce the quantity of packaging, citing damage to the environment, FEFCO says evidence now shows that: “Food waste has a 10-fold greater environmental impact than the packaging around it,” as put by Andrew Parry of UK government-backed body WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme).
“Increases in packaging of a couple of grams can prevent food waste that has a much bigger environmental impact,” says Parry.
However while Europeans waste too much, the story is altogether different for low-income countries, according to Selina Juul of Stop Wasting Food in Denmark.
“In Sub-Saharan Africa, food capable of feeding 48 million people is wasted annually post-harvest, with lack of packaging and poor infrastructure being the main causes, and this is before it even reaches consumers,” she says.
The role of the FEFCO federation is to investigate economic, financial, technical and marketing issues of interest to the corrugated packaging Industry, to analyse all factors which may influence the industry, and to promote and develop its image. ‘Corrugated of Course’ is a communication platform maintained by FEFCO, to communicate the many strengths of the corrugated industry to producers, retailers and political institutions at the European level.
