Transforming Food Packaging through Mushrooms and Microorganisms

As consumers demand more environmentally friendly practices from companies and brands, sustainability has become a buzzword in the food industry. The most common pledges go from reducing food waste, supporting regenerative farming, cutting animal proteins consumption, and more generally reducing carbon emissions. Yet, still too rarely do companies actually take any tangible action on packaging. Why? Well, because it’s very hard.

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Being able to ensure freshness, convenience and food safety, while meeting esthetical standards and minimizing the ecological footprint, is not an easy challenge. However, sustainable packaging solutions are expected to become increasingly important over the next few years, as consumers’ preferences progressively shift towards products that are planet-friendly at an all-around level. With two-thirds (67%) of consumers considering it important that the products they buy are in recyclable packaging, and the same percentage consider themselves environmentally aware, the global sustainable packaging market is projected to reach $470 billion by 2027, up from an estimated $305 billion in 2020.

Indeed, there are some companies trying to capture this growth opportunity as early innovators, using cutting-edge technologies or never-before-seen ingredient combinations to bring to the market innovative packaging solutions.

Following are five surprising solutions and strategies to tackle this problem. We hope this could serve as a source of inspiration for food industry experts and consumers willing to make a full-on sustainable shift in their operations.

From mushrooms and fungi to mycelium

Mycelium is an innovative packaging material very similar to polystyrene foam. Lightweight, easy to mould, and easy to produce – all favourable traits for materials used in packaging – mycelium is cost-competitive with polystyrene foam, making its most common use as a replacement where Styrofoam is typically used, e.g. to protect glass bottles and jars for shipment.