Food insecurity is becoming an increasingly urgent problem across the world. According to Action Against Hunger, in 2020, 2.37 billion people did not have access to enough safe and nutritious food, equating to around one in nine people going hungry every day. The coronavirus pandemic worsened these figures, with an estimated 30 million people being affected by hunger due to the pandemic.

The Problem of Food Waste and Food Insecurity

One of the most promising strategies in the fight against increasing food insecurity is to prevent food waste. As population sizes grow, diets change, and urbanization pushes forward, the agricultural industry is finding itself under increasing pressure to provide more food in the same amount of space. By 2050, the world’s crop production will have had to have doubled in order to meet the growing demand for food. Statistics show that currently, around a third of all food produced globally is wasted. Therefore, addressing food waste provides a viable option to providing more food and reducing food insecurity.

Recently, scientists in Canada have devised novel fruit packaging that can preserve the freshness of strawberries for up to 12 days. The innovation marks a significant step towards addressing food waste and tackling food insecurity.

Innovative Packaging to Tackle Food Waste

Québec produces more strawberries each year than any other province in the country. Strawberry producers and sellers face the challenge of keeping these berries fresh. To tackle this problem, a team of researchers led by Monique Lacroix at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) developed a novel film for use as food packaging. Initial research has shown that the film can maintain the freshness of the strawberries for up to 12 days.

The innovative film protects the fruit from mold and pathogenic bacteria. The study’s results showed that the loss rate of the strawberry batches was significantly less for strawberries packaged with the novel film in comparison with control strawberries (38% loss rate vs. 55%, respectively).

Strawberry producers will likely benefit from the invention as it will allow them to increase their crop yield. There is also an opportunity to develop the film for use in packaging other fresh produce. Potentially, the film could greatly benefit the wider agricultural and food seller market.

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