ECO-VIEW 

Objective 

Redesign existing multipack apple packaging in order to reduce the amount of food waste occurring with within retail settings. To achieve this the new packaging should look to include smart technologies which will allow consumers and retail workers to easily determine the produce quality. The packaging should also reconsider how it protects the fruit, ensuring it is protected from external damage but also protection from microbial damage caused by the fruit it is packaged alongside. The new solution needs to improve current precedents approach to the above problems whilst also still being a commercially viable product.

 

Rationale

In a study conducted by the Swedish Institute for Food, it was suggested that around a third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted, this translates to roughly 1.3 billion tonnes annually (2011). There are also environmental concerns with food waste as well. When the food spoils, the energy used in the growing, packaging and distribution stages are lost. If the world to stop wasting food, human-caused greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by around 7% (WWF, n.d). There is also a misalignment between those targeted with existing food waste reduction campaigns and those producing the most food waste. Cheaperwaste found that food waste attributed to production and retail settings, eclipses that produced by consumers (2011). In a study conducted by the FAO, they discovered than fresh fruit and vegetable produce has the highest chance of becoming food waste than all other food types, both in Europe and Globally (2011).