绿色：可持续性如何改善食品包装

在当今的食品行业中，产品包装在两种矛盾的消费者趋势之间陷入困境：可持续性和便利性。

Hectic schedules and越来越偏爱零食而不是传统餐已经驱动了对CPG产品的强烈需求，但是将这些物品保持在环境成本的情况下，塑料，纸板和泡沫聚苯乙烯是货架稳定的，这是越来越多的消费者不愿支付的。At the same time, shoppers are willing toshell out more for products they view as premium, environmentally-conscious and mission-based.

“Younger generations really expect this as part of their loyalty to a brand, and they expect to identify with not only the product they’re consuming, but what the brand actually stands for,” Russell Zack, senior vice president of products and solutions at HelloWorld,told Food Dive。

Sustainable packaging can be a lucrative way for brands to gain a health halo and refresh their image without having to reformulate their products. Eye-catching, eco-friendly packaging — when done right — also can be an opportunity for companies to develop distinct branding that sets them apart from their competitors on the shelf, as well as capture loyal consumers across demographics.

This allure is prompting major manufacturers and upstart brands to develop packaging that will shrink their environmental footprint, resulting in marketplace solutions that are revolutionizing packaged food and beverages purchased by consumers everyday.

植物在塑料上

瓶装水可能比苏打水更受欢迎，但饮料类别给环境带来了巨大的压力。生产塑料瓶three times the water that’s actually contained inside of them, andonly about 30% of plastic bottles are recycled。

To solve this problem, companies such as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are developingbiodegradable bottles made from ingredients like mushrooms and seaweed。但是，尽管这种策略使塑料远离了海洋和垃圾填埋场，但它也将资源从粮食生产中转移出来，从而造成了另一种环境压力。

This is why DanoneWave and Nestle Waters, the world’s largest bottled-water manufacturers, partnered with California startup Origin Materials to create自然瓶联盟，一项计划，旨在为由纸板和木屑等废弃的可持续木材产品制成的维持生命的饮料包装。两家公司希望到2020年至少生产75％的生物宠物瓶，然后在2022年扩大95％。

“当前市场上的技术使得拥有30％的生物宠物成为可能，”原始材料首席执行官约翰·比塞尔（John Bissell），在新闻稿中说。“我们的突破性技术旨在在商业规模上达到100％基于生物的瓶子。在我们的联盟合作伙伴的帮助下，Origin Materials将能够扩展已经在试点级别证明的技术。”

It will be interesting to see how water manufacturers respond once these wood-based bottles start rolling out. If Nestle and DanoneWave launch a successful marketing campaign highlighting the bottle’s environmental benefits, it could spur other major bottle manufacturers to develop bio-based packaging of their own, creating a momentum for a new industry standard.

Breaking the mold

In some cases, creating more sustainable packaging means doing away with iconic containers. This is a risky move as radically new packaging appearances could confuse and even alienate consumers, giving more traditional applications a leg up. Still, companies such as Boxed Water is Better is willing to take the gamble.

“We believe that packaged water should be healthy and pure, and that’s why Boxed Water is 100 percent BPA and phthalate free, free from impurities, or the things you don’t need,” CEO Daryn Kuiperstold Food Dive。“盒装水提供了一种选择，可以与寻找包装水的更好选择的消费者保持一致，这是一种更具可持续性，更周到的选择。”

Boxed Water is leveraging a strategy similar to Nestle Waters and DanoneWave, but it is taking it a step farther. The company's white containers, which are tall and narrow, are decorated only with black block letters that read “Boxed Water Is Better” with an image of a water droplet.

Rather than trying to innovate within the expected design of a water bottle, the company is instead attempting to differentiate itself from the competition with an entirely different appearance. The not-so-subtle branding also was a risk, though it seems to be taking off with millennials on social media who view the packaging as a mark of premium quality.

Still, going against the grain has been challenging for the company, and only time will tell if the average consumer will be compelled enough to swap the familiar convenience of plastic bottled water for something that resembles a milk carton.

重新考虑水是另一家将其水包装在纸板上的饮料公司，也是Rethink Brands的创始人兼首席执行官Matthew Swanson表示，该公司最大的挑战之一是说服消费者的产品含有水。

“People are so trained to drink water out of a plastic bottle, when you put it in a different form they wonder if it’s coconut water or juice or milk. That’s why educating consumers is our top priority,”Swanson told Food Dive。“Our trail was low but repeat is high, so we know that if we can get the product into people’s hands, they will come back and buy it again. It will take time, but people are starting to understand more about what box water is.”

让他们吃包装

Just because consumers want their product packaging to be more sustainable, doesn’t mean that it has to be boring. Novelty food items are interesting to mass market consumers, which is why companies are developing product packaging people can eat along with its contents.

Startup company and media darling Loliware, for example, has created由有机甜味剂和海藻制成的可堆肥杯that consumers can either discard in their yard or munch on once they’ve finished their beverage. A marriage of sensory indulgence and environmental responsibility, the young company’s product could cause a significant disruption in the packaging space if expanded to other food products.

基于牛奶的包装是另一个创新食品科学家正在发展以减少包装浪费。这种称为酪蛋白的食用材料最终可以代替包裹奶酪和碎牛肉等冷藏易腐物的塑料膜。

This thin, flexible plastic is more difficult to recycle than the thicker material found in egg containers, milk jugs and bottles of coffee creamer. The U.S. Agriculture Department also found that casein can be up to比塑料保持氧气远离食物的500倍。In addition, it doesn’t contain harmful chemicals that some researchers claim traditional plastic adds to food.

Casein isn’t yet publicly available, but the material shows promise as a functionally superior and environmentally-friendly alternative to standard shrink plastics. If casein is formulated with flavors or vitamins, it could also help entice consumers who are more interested in novelty than environmental sustainability.

未来不含标签

包装一直被用作拉长food’s shelf life and cut down on spoilage rates, but confusing sell by and best by product labels can still lead consumers to throw out food before it’s gone bad. One company, thermoplastic resin maker Barksem, aims to create packaging that clearly communicates food safety to the consumer.

该公司已与美国和巴西的大学合作开发了新鲜的食品包装原型当食物不再安全食用时会更改颜色。The material detects pH changes in the food it contains to gauge spoilage.

Barksem并不是第一个公司的进步this field, either. Researchers at the University of Rhode Island developedheat-sensing UPC codes that change color几年前，新鲜产品变得太暖了。这项创新可能会对食品工业的废物产量产生重大影响，并可以节省消费者过早扔掉产品或不再安全的食物。

"A product's entire value chain can benefit from this technology," Marcia Pires, polymer science researcher at Braksem,told Food Food Navigator。"This gives consumers greater quality assurance on the products they take home, and allows companies to control product integrity after manufacture, either during transport or at the point of sale."