Food packaging – materials and sustainability-A review

The principal purpose of food packaging continues to be maintaining the safety, wholesomeness, and quality of food. The large growing middle class, liberalization and organized retail sector are the catalysts to growth in packaging. The key packaging materials are glass, metal, plastics, paper, laminates, co-extrusion and bio-degradable polymers, However there is a shift in demand which makes laminates and co-extrusion the finest among all. The major segments of packaging industry in India are flexible packaging, folding cartons, corrugated boards and boxes, labels, shrink sleeves and wrappings and glass bottles. While the concept of sustainable packaging like green polyethylene is also prevailing, which is a plastic produced from ethanol sugarcane, a renewable raw material. These sustainable packages are derived from food, which create the problem of competing with the food resources in future.