Role of packaging in the smorgasbord of action for sustainable food consumption

In a context of food security concerns, reducing huge and worldwide food losses and waste (more than one third of food production) is the priority action to focus on. The paper aims at explaining at which levels packaging could be a key player for sustainable food consumption: (i) by improving food preservation, and therefore reducing food losses, by balancing cold chain issues with modified atmosphere packaging implementation which means to develop food requirements driven approaches to design tailor made packaging, (ii) by reducing the environmental impact of the packaging materials themselves, including wastes management issues, which means developing eco-friendly packaging and (iii) by reaching a compromise to answer the sometimes contradictory concerns of environmental, economical and social sustainability of food, using decision-making tools to select or design optimised food packaging. An example of a current European research project, EcoBioCAP, illustrates how the combination of both specialised and integrated researches makes it possible to improve the overall sustainability of food packaging.