The Biosmart project aims to reduce the food that is thrown away, developing biobased compostable or recyclable packaging, including sensors to monitor food shelf-life plus functional and barrier coatings, as Dr Amaya Igartua from Fundación TEKNIKER explains
The keywords
European Commission, BBI research, BIC Consortia, BIOSMART, bioplastic, recyclable, hydrophobic, compostable, biodegradable, food security, smart, active, biobased products for food packaging.
The problem to solve
Multiple studies by organisations such as Natural Resources Defence Council indicate that society is wasting up to 40% of food produced. In the case of Europe, this represents 90kg/person/year.
The objective
The EU and industry-funded BIOSMART project is working on the development of bio-based food packaging that can monitor and extend shelf-life, while being compostable, biodegradable or recyclable and friendly for the environment.
The concept
The concept of the project has been built with the collaboration of the complete value chain through their participation in the Advisory Board, involving the resin manufacturer (NatureWorks), the Brand Owner (Unilever) and the Retail (Eroski).
The market sizes
The processed food market consisting of more than 46 billion retail units represents 3.1 million tonnes of plastics use. Global production capacity of “bioplastics” in the rigid and flexible market segment is 1,7MT with a significant growth capacity (http://bio-based.eu).
This project has received funding from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 745762.
Please note: This is a commercial profile
