Recent advancements in food packaging that use nanotechnology have the potential to improve food quality and safety by extending freshness, repairing damaged packaging, and informing consumers about spoilage. These innovations also offer sustainability benefits by reducing food waste and providing more environmentally friendly packaging options. However, it is crucial to ensure the safety of nanomaterials in food packaging for human health. A “safe-and-sustainable-by-design” approach can help balance innovation, sustainability, recyclability, and safety in packaging development.

Advancements in food packaging

A recent study reviews developments in food packaging using nanotechnology. Incorporating nanomaterials into packaging can help inform consumers if a product is spoiled, allow packaging to repair when torn and extend the freshness of food for a longer time, thereby improving food quality and safety.

Sustainability benefits

With a growing global population, the demand for food is enormous. Finding ways to reduce food waste and spoilage throughout the supply chain can significantly lower the resources needed for food production and transport. Moreover, nanotechnology offers opportunities for more sustainable food packaging options, since traditional plastic materials often have a high carbon footprint and do not break down easily in the environment.

Different types of nanomaterials

Various types of nanomaterials could be successfully used in sustainable food packaging. The main categories include:

• Organic materials. These come from natural sources, such as fats, proteins, and sugars.
• Inorganic materials. These include materials like silver, silica, titanium dioxide, nanoclays and carbon nanotubes.
• Hybrid materials. These are a combination of organic and inorganic nanomaterials, such as montmorillonite (a type of clay mineral).

Safety considerations

Foodborne illnesses can lead to serious health issues. Using nanomaterials in food packaging can help reduce such risks. However, it is essential to be aware that nanomaterials can sometimes migrate from packaging into food, so the potential risks to human health from the nanomaterials themselves must also be considered.

Ways forward

To ensure packaging is both safe and sustainable, the authors suggest we need better methods to analyse and measure nanomaterials in food. They also recommend using natural materials whenever possible to make packaging more environmentally friendly and easier to decompose.

Reflection by RIVM

Recent innovations in food packaging offer a lot of potential to improve (environmental) sustainability and, in particular, microbial safety. In Europe, the Food Contact Material Regulation ensures that materials used for food packaging are safe for people. This regulation requires a good understanding of how nanomaterials might migrate into food. For the individual components of the packaging material (including any nanomaterials) the REACH Regulation requires their safe use.

When developing new packaging materials, it is also important to consider how easy they will be to recycle. Some materials, especially inorganic or carbon-based materials, do not break down easily, which can create challenges for recycling. This is independent of whether their origin is natural or anthropogenic.

The Safe and Sustainable by Design approach can be highly beneficial, for example for developers of food packaging. It can guide the development of new packaging materials in a way that not only aims to reduce food waste, but also ensures the packaging is safely produced, is safe for consumers and can be recycled effectively. Overall, these innovations can lead to a better food packaging system that benefits both our health and the planet.