How Polystyrene Packaging Helps to Minimise Food Waste

As UK consumers opt to purchase and store perishable food types for lengthier periods during the current pandemic, we’re thinking about the role insulated packaging plays in reducing food waste. The current data shows that approx. 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted globally every year. Equivalent to a third of the world’s annual food requirements and enough to feed 2 billion people.

Looking at things from a climate change perspective. When perishable food is poorly packed for shipping this can lead to temperature sensitive produce spoiling and therefore being unfit for human consumption upon delivery, this doesn’t just waste food, but it is also a waste of resources too.

Food production that is lost or wasted:

• Accounts for 7% of greenhouse gas emissions globally
   
• Uses 30% of agricultural land worldwide
   
• 6% of total water drawn from surface and groundwater

Packaging you can reliable upon has never been more important than it is now where feeding the population and preventing illness is so important. Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) and reusable Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) packaging can play a vital role. EPS and EPP boxes are still one of the safest and most reliable ways to deliver perishable foods, our polystyrene packaging offers superior insulation help to protect fine foods from temperature stock during delivery periods up to 48 hours. Simply maintaining a stable temperature helps to minimise the impact of the food industry on the environment by stopping food from perishing before it reaches the kitchen.

Clean polystyrene boxes are 100% recyclable and reusable with a number of handy applications in the garden as large seed trays ideal for growing salad and also broken up and placed in the bottom of plant pots to improve drainage and reduce the amount of compost required to fill your pots. Speaking of compost we also manufacture the award winning HOTBIN Composter from the same material use for our reusable DeluxeThermo Box range.

Food can often be wasted during handling, delivery and processing, when ideal temperatures below 5°C are not maintained and when packaging is not adequate enough to keep produce chilled or even frozen effectively. High performance insulated boxes from JB Packaging provide a real defence against the outside elements and moisture, stopping waste and also protecting your specialist produce from damage while in storage and during transport.