EU Refucoat Project reveals recyclable shelf life-enhancing bioplastic solutions for chicken, cereals and snacks

04 Jan 2021 --- The EU-funded Refucoat Project is reporting breakthroughs in recyclable bioplastic food packaging capable of replacing conventional fossil-based raw materials.

Refucoat has developed three different bio-based active packaging systems specifically to package fresh chicken meat, cereals and snacks.

Notably, the project’s formulation of bacteriophage-based coatings reduces Salmonella bacteria’s proliferation in chicken breast samples packaged in a modified atmosphere.

Food waste is an urgent global issue. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), each EU citizen throws away 179 kgs of food in good condition on average per year.

Food loss and waste must be reduced to create a zero hunger world and meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 (zero hunger) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production).

EU regulations impending
Plastic is the most commonly used shelf life-extending packaging material, boasting versatility, lightness, ease of handling and durability, but many types of plastic are unrecyclable within existing EU infrastructure.

Despite plastic’s advantages, the EU’s 2018 plastics strategy requires all packaging to be recyclable by 2030 and in an economically viable way.

Refucoat adds that consumers’ increased environmental awareness has made it necessary to continue with research to create more environmentally sustainable packaging.

Within this context, Refucoat is pioneering bioplastic packaging solutions that could positively impact food waste reduction.

These bioplastics include polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) and polyglycolide (PGA), which were used to develop the three different bio-based active packaging systems.

European Bioplastics (EUBP) is predicting dynamic growth in the global bioplastics market, spurred by innovative biopolymers like PHA.

The market share of PHAs has continued to grow since the biopolymer entered the market, reports EUBP. Production capacities are set to increase almost sevenfold in the next five years.The EU-funded Refucoat Project has developed three bio-based active packaging systems to package fresh chicken meat, cereals and snacks and extend product shelf life.

Recyclable food waste solutions
One of Refucoat’s “greatest innovations” is the formulation of bacteriophage-based coatings that considerably reduce Salmonella bacteria’s proliferation in chicken breast samples packaged in a modified atmosphere.

Protective plastic packaging is typically made of complex multilayer structures, either difficult or costly to recycle. However, all Refucoat’s packaging systems can be recycled and in some cases composted, making them a “very promising” sustainable alternative to current packaging on the market. 

“Packaging must be recyclable and must also maintain the barrier properties that help protect packaged food,” reiterates Lorena Rodríguez Garrido, a packaging researcher at Aimplas Plastics Technology Centre, and the scientific coordinator of Refucoat.

“Current packaging has a complex multilayer structure and is made from non-renewable sources. It provides all the protective functions but is difficult and expensive to recycle.”

Refucoat’s legacy
Refucoat focused on three main areas during its three year project span:

• Developing active coatings for food packaging films that use bacteriophage organisms to extend the shelf life of food products and provide a significant reduction in the proliferation of Salmonella in chicken breast samples packaged in a modified environment.
• Using low-quality flour (a food industry by-product otherwise wasted) as a base to produce PHA, a biodegradable biopolymer, then used to manufacture food trays that extend the shelf life of fresh chicken meat products.
• Creating an efficient PGA production process for PGA, a biodegradable material with enhanced water barrier properties that is promising for food packaging. Until recently, this solution had been too expensive to use to replace fossil-fuel-based materials. 

The Refucoat Project ended in October 2020 after successfully validating all these new packaging structures and comparing their performance with metalized packaging for non-biological applications currently used for industrial products.

Tests were also carried out to compare the products’ shelf life and biodegradability with those of current conventional packaging on the market. 

In another EU-funded packaging project, FlexFunction2Sustain eco-friendly packaging initiative is uniting 19 European research and industry partners in a smart plastics and paper-based products Open Innovation Test Bed.

FlexFunction2Sustain envisages new business opportunities in replacing glass and metal with nano-functionalized plastic or paper surfaces in various products, enabling reductions in weight and cost and mechanical flexibility gains.

By Joshua Poole