New Active Sustainable Packaging with Natural Antimicrobials for Shelf Life extension of Fish Products.
“ACTIPACK4FISH“
Plastic pollution and food waste are two major issues worldwide and sustainable packaging development and application is currently the dominant trend across the food industry. ACTIPACK4FISH will develop and demonstrate use of new generation, sustainably-active antimicrobial/antioxidant packaging materials (AAPM) for seafood shelf-life extension, enhanced safety, and reduced food and packaging waste, thus addressing environmental concerns associated with such packaging materials and formats. Natural substances will be screened, optimized and characterized to finally integrate them into novel packaging materials, including: sustainable, recyclable and biodegradable polymers to produce advanced multi-functional packaging applications. Whilst potentially suitable for a wide range of food packaging applications, this project will apply and validate these technologies at laboratory and industrial scale for modified atmosphere packaging formats of selected fresh pelagic and demersal fish. Adoption of ACTIPACK4FISH sustainable materials will provide seafood processing companies with significant potential to extend product shelf-lives up to 2 days, reducing food waste for non-recyclable synthetic plastics use and its subsequent waste-streams, supply-chain efficiency and export potential for circumventing delays in the chilled distribution chain or for reaching further-distant export markets. ACTIPACK4FISH will help the Irish seafood industry meet the economic, regulatory and social pressures to be more sustainable. This project relies on the team’s knowledge and expertise in seafood and packaging technology, materials science and food safety.
Actipack4fish 