What drives (food) packaging innovation?

Food packaging technology has gone through a fast and significant development in the past three decades and yet the smartest developments ave yet to be seen. This paper explores the charter of food packaging in combination with factors that affect its development and its application. It emphasizes that packaging is move than a clever way of combining materials. Adding value in the food supply chain through the development of partnership relations between the packaging industry and packaging users seems to be the credo for the new millennium. The paper concludes with some examples of recent innovations in packaging material technology and applications. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.