Sustainable Packaging and Waste

The importance of a sustainable food system leads to developments and improvements in the food value chain.

The importance of a sustainable food system from a general need to better our current unsustainable food system, the impact on the environment and other avoid events such as the coronavirus pandemic. These adjustments also apply to food packaging with different sources of materials, reuse or using smart labels.

Several Spanish startups are disrupting the industry and developing sustainable packaging solutions to help reduce waste.

Indeed, Feltwood develops technologies to produce ecological industrial materials, composed of 100% vegetable fibers, using agricultural waste products, becoming a real alternative to plastic, wood and more. The materials are fully biodegradable, recyclable and compostable. There is also Bumerang, a startup focusing on the concept of reusing. Their goal is to eliminate single use packaging by replacing it with a reusable, sustainable packaging solution.

Another growing area in packaging is bioplastic solutions. ADBioplastics is dedicated to the development and commercial exploitation of custom-made additives and bioplastics, a strong alternative to the traditional, polluting plastic from fossil fuels. The products are biobased and compostable, decomposing within six months in an industrial process. Moreover, VEnvirotech, a biotechnology startup, is dedicated to the transformation of organic waste into bioplastics by bacteria, biodegradable in the environment and compatible with the human body. They achieve this thanks to their own technology that is installed directly where the waste is generated to transform it into PHA bioplastics.

Regarding sensor stickers, Oscillum develops sensors in sticker format for wide applications in the agrifood sector to make processes simple and easier.The sensor sticker on a product indicates the state of the product in real time. In addition, ColorSensing is a startup developing algorithm designs color patterns for each specific application based on QR technology. The algorithm processes the images, returning either the color-corrected picture or quantitative information about the target color to measure. FoodSensing helps food manufacturers and retailers cut down food waste and adds quality to their products thanks to an automatic, quantitative and cost-effective food freshness indicator.