Packaging plays a key role in the protection and preservation of food. The use of packaging developed under eco-design criteria significantly reduces the amount of food waste before consumption.

That's why the SISTERS project is working on the development of packaging with sensors for the transportation of fresh food, which allows monitoring of environmental conditions during shipment to distribution or processing plants, in addition to sustainable packaging that protects processed food until consumption.

Within the circular concept under which the SISTERS project is structured, ITC PACKAGING is tasked with designing and developing three new packaging concepts to contain fresh cheese, mushrooms, and fresh fruits. These packages will be used within SISTERS to test new formulations of sustainable plastics based on PLA and the addition of bio-additives to make them compostable, developed in the project.

In the eco-design of the packaging carried out by ITC PACKAGING, factors such as:

  • Reduction of packaging thickness without compromising functionality

  • Stackability of empty and filled packages to optimize space in transport and storage

  • Manufacturing with sustainable materials

  • 100% recyclable, biodegradable, and compostable packaging with the use of the CARBIOS additive

The manufacturing tests carried out by ITC PACKAGING during the project have served to optimize the formulations of sustainable plastics developed in SISTERS, as well as to define the injection parameters for processing packaging with these materials. Critical parameters include: Melt temperature, residence time, viscosity, injection speed, etc. Being those complex materials with a high level of degradation during the injection process.

ITC PACKAGING has distributed 1,000 samples among the project partners for testing it with foods such as fresh cheese, salmon, mushrooms, and fresh fruits, which will serve to validate the effectiveness of the designs and materials used for their production, as well as the conservation and distribution processes designed with SISTERS.