Developing the world’s first food wrapping machine with organic film

Plastic packaging is convenient, key to food hygiene and prolongs shelf life, yet reliance on its use results in 16 million tonnes of waste yearly in the EU. The food industry must adopt other enabling technologies before new biodegradable alternatives to plastic wrapping can be fully developed.

To ensure food safety and quality in a cost-effective manner, food industry suppliers need to adapt to modern packaging machinery to extend shelf life and reduce spoilage and risk of contamination. An opportunity exists to transform the food packaging industry in Europe and beyond. The EU-funded Proteus 25 project “fills a gap in the food supply chain by developing the world’s first food wrapping machine that promises zero packaging waste and prolongs shelf life and food safety,” says coordinator Carlo Pignatari.

Benefiting from plastic without adverse economic, environmental and social consequences

“The most promising and pragmatic alternative to packaging plastics is the development of new biodegradable and edible plastics created from natural sources and not from petroleum,” explains Pignatari. In this way, the packaging material’s environmental footprint is reduced dramatically. “The material will be disposed of immediately after its use without the need for recycling since it can be biodegraded and used as a compostable material for applications.”

The use of such bioplastics instead of conventional plastics in the industry isn’t only a problem of developing the packaging material, but also creating appropriate packaging machines. Nowadays, bioplastic-based packaging isn’t suitable for actual use in existing packaging machines. Therefore, new packaging machines are needed to replace the traditional equivalents.

Project partners developed a prototype wrapping machine that will be the first to integrate organic biodegradable wrapping films while reducing food waste thanks to patented purification technology. Unique features and functionalities include biodegradable biopolymer-based packaging, shelf life extension with a novel purification module that preserves food without altering its physical properties, adaptability of packaging labelling and size, and Internet of Things for predictive maintenance and interoperability with other devices and services.

Paving the way to complete food packaging waste elimination

To eliminate plastic packaging waste, the Proteus 25 innovation will utilise new biodegradable bioplastic material from raw food waste. “We have designed, manufactured and begun commercialising the first generation of Proteus,” notes Pignatari. “The machine is already solving existing wrapping problems and it’s ready to accommodate the purification, Internet of Things and labelling modules of the next prototype iterations.”

The Proteus 25 solution has been designed and developed as a new generation of stretch film packaging machines, the so-called Proteus series. According to Pignatari, additional EU funding will help realise their vision of successfully completing the series with Proteus ZeroImpact.

By securing new funding, he’s confident that Proteus ZeroImpact will become the “first-ever machine to entirely get rid of packaging waste through biodegradable plastic packaging, minimise food waste by extending shelf life up to 100 %, adapt product packaging with as many as 3 customisable labels, and wrap multiple sizes of products without stopping the process or changing the configuration.” In addition, ZeroImpact will provide disturbance-free operation with predictable maintenance, customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning integration for optimising production and stock.

Reference source:Developing the world’s first food wrapping machine with organic film