As seen in an article published in ProFood World
Food waste can be a significant burden on company profits, consumers’ wallets and the health of the climate. Advances in active and intelligent packaging, defined as packaging that includes features to extend shelf life or monitor freshness, offer a chance to tackle the issue.
Angela Morgan, director of business development at Aptar, stressed the impact food waste has on all stakeholders at the AIPIA Smart Packaging Summit, which took place Oct. 25 at PACK EXPO International in Chicago.
About $400 billion is lost to food waste before products even reach the market each year, she said, or about 14% of all food produced. This wasted food is also a lost humanitarian opportunity. According to Morgan, 690 million people are hungry and 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet.
On the environmental front, “food lost in waste if it were its own country would be the third largest source of greenhouse gasses behind China and the United States,” Morgan said.
Antimicrobial Active Packaging 
One technology that offers an array of solutions to help cut down on food waste is antimicrobial packaging.
Aptar’s InvisiShield is a three-phase polymer that uses chlorine dioxide to protect produce from pathogens. The technology is integrated into sealed packaging with “channels in it that will release in a controlled way that chlorine dioxide gas into that headspace of the pack in order to extend the shelf life, reduce food waste and make the product safer,” Morgan said.
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