Producing Alternative Sustainable food bio-based PACKaging from Mediterranean agri-food by-products and waste – PASPACK 4.0

PASPACK 4.0 aims to produce an innovative and sustainable bio-based food packaging from Mediterranean agri-food by-products and waste, especially pomegranate (peel and seeds) and dates (date pits, molasses), to contribute to addressing the dilemma of food waste and the overuse of plastic in food packaging. This will be achieved by harnessing innovative technologies, mainly those of fourth industrial revolution (I4.0) innovations, such as smart sensors, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, blockchain, 3D printing, and radio-frequency identification (RFID), to develop a sustainable alternative smart food packaging with the following features: to be able to reduce food waste and plastic food packaging material; to be active to maintain food quality and improve shelf-life; to be sustainable and cost-effective, obtained from agri-food by-products and waste, using emerging green extraction and processing technologies; to be flexible and suitable for application to different food categories; and to be intelligent to monitor food quality and safety and tell the consumer about freshness of the packaged food.
Our innovative approach will be based on polysaccharide-cellulose nanocrystals matrix, designed from date and pomegranate by-products and waste, enriched by bioactive compounds to enhance the antimicrobial and antioxidant capacity of the developed packaging film. An anthocyanin-based pH-sensitive indicator will be developed and RFID tags will be implemented to monitor food freshness. Moreover, blockchain applications will be used to provide relevant information about the traceability of food along the supply chain, constituting the originality and novelty of the proposed packaging solution. The smart packaging will be tailored and adopted to improve the shelf-life of highly perishable products, such as fish, meat, and cheese. The project is subdivided into seven work packages with well-defined goals and tasks, which falls perfectly under the multi-actor approach given the strong and diverse set of stakeholders (17 partners from 9 Mediterranean countries) involved in this project.