Safety, Smart Tech and Sustainability: Food Packaging Trends to Watch in 2023

Modernization keeps accelerating, and half the global population now lives in cities. With limited land and environmental capacity in urban areas, prepackaged food has become essential to daily life.

There is an old saying about not judging a book by its cover. In food retail, however, packaging is often the first visual cue that shapes choice. Ipsos research found that 72% of surveyed shoppers are influenced by packaging when selecting products.

For food, effective packaging preserves freshness and hygiene, extends shelf life, cuts waste, and strengthens brand visibility. According to the World Packaging Organisation (WPO), the global packaging market has surpassed USD 500 billion, with food packaging making the main contribution.

The food packaging sector has advanced considerably in recent years. New technology and materials have moved packaging beyond freshness and shelf-life basics into information delivery, consumer experience and more.

Although packaging preferences vary by country and region, the industry's overall development direction is largely consistent.

So as 2023 begins, which food packaging trends will capture consumer attention and influence purchase decisions?

Chart: FDL Food Insights

01 An Enduring Priority: Safety Comes First

Food is the foundation of life, and safety is the foundation of food.

Food safety remains a central concern. Beyond the quality and safety of the food itself, consumers also watch packaging safety. As interest grows in ingredients and production methods, demand rises for transparency across the entire farm-to-table journey.

1. Freshness-retaining packaging

Food often travels long distances before reaching supermarket shelves, and that journey can take considerable time. Keeping food fresh and hygienic is therefore the baseline for packaging safety. As packaging industrialization deepens, combinations of composite materials with different properties offer better options.

In modified atmosphere packaging, for instance, inert gases such as nitrogen and carbon dioxide replace oxygen, slowing bacterial growth without additives. Yet the packaging material must deliver strong gas barrier performance, or the protective gas will escape quickly.

In the past, rice sacks had to be fumigated every five weeks because rice weevils have a four-to-five-week life cycle. To address this, Singapore Storage &Warehouse, one of Singapore's rice storage contractors, developed a patented technology. Instead of traditional methyl bromide fumigation, it relies on technology developed locally over the past three years to control the atmosphere around stored rice and keep weevils and other insects away.

Using modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) box technology invented in 2019, the company places rice sacks on pallets and covers them with customized shells to form sealed boxes. Oxygen is then extracted while inert gas is pumped in, maintaining low oxygen levels that adult weevils and other pests cannot survive.

Each box can store about half a tonne of rice, according to the company. More than half of the over 20,000 pallets in its rice storage warehouse are now enclosed in MAP boxes.

Image: straitstimes

1. Smart packaging According to the World Health Organization, about 600 million people suffer from food poisoning each year, and 420,000 die. Meanwhile, large amounts of clean food are discarded over suspected contamination, while tracing and determining food origin and safety is time-consuming and labor-intensive.

As high-tech and new technologies enter food packaging, food poisoning and food waste are being alleviated. First, innovative blockchain applications are beginning to solve traceability challenges.

Poultry producer Farmer Focus launched traceable packaging to encourage consumers to buy organic chicken. In addition to key claims such as 'organic and free-range,' the packaging carries a new QR code that helps consumers trace the origin of each Farmer Focus chicken on its website.

Image: meatpoultry

At the same time, food packaging is leveraging the Internet of Things, applying sensors, chips and printed electronic labels to food safety—determining whether food has been stored at the proper temperature and whether it has spoiled. Through smart packaging, users can view real-time status information.

To determine whether food is safe to eat, consumers usually check production and expiry dates, but this does not accurately reveal its current state. U.S. packaging company Sonoco is developing packaging with an integrated microchip that can collect status data such as humidity and temperature and trigger an alert when preset temperature thresholds are exceeded or not met.

For commercialization, cost is of course the first consideration. For higher-value foods—such as premium health supplements and freshness-critical products—smart packaging can be a way to raise added value and usability, while helping consumers better understand food quality and safety.

02 What Other Sustainability Moves Are Available?

Severe climate change is threatening Earth's ecology, forcing humans to seek more sustainable diets and lifestyles.

Prepackaged food offers a safe, convenient and shelf-stable solution for modern society, but most food packaging is single-use, and discarded waste causes substantial environmental pollution. It is estimated that about 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced since around 1950, and it takes roughly 500 years to decompose.

Therefore, in 2023, with sustainability still a major issue, how food producers choose sustainable packaging is central to the green agenda. A businesswire report shows that globally, 85% of people say they are shifting toward sustainable products. Environmentally conscious consumers want to support brands aligned with their values and are willing to pay a premium.

In response, some food manufacturers are actively seeking more sustainable packaging solutions.

1. Edible packaging

Edible coatings, one of the most promising packaging alternatives, are an emerging green technology generally used to regulate gas exchange, moisture transfer and oxidation across various products. One notable advantage of edible films and coatings is that active chemicals can be incorporated into a polymer matrix and consumed with the food, improving safety as well as nutritional and sensory properties.

Beyond replacing artificial packaging, the product offers other benefits. When polymers are present in edible materials, they are lightweight and have good tensile performance. Natural biopolymers have multiple advantages in life sciences because they can be extracted from marine organisms, agriculture or animals, and are biocompatible and biodegradable.

Globenewswire forecasts that by 2028 the global edible films and coatings market will reach USD 4.2 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.5% during the forecast period.

Spain's Bio2Coat is working to solve food waste and plastic waste from conventional packaging materials through a 100% natural edible coating that extends the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

Based in Barcelona, the startup was founded by researchers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. The company says experiments show its edible coating can reduce losses and reject rates in fruit and vegetable production while keeping products fresh, tasty and longer-lasting.

According to the company, the coating formula contains only three to four '100% natural ingredients,' with no chemicals and no food additives of any kind. When applied directly to food surfaces, the coating forms a semi-permeable barrier that controls respiration rate, reduces weight loss and prevents micro-contamination, thereby extending shelf life. The company claims the coatings leave no residue and have no harmful environmental impact, making the technology fully sustainable.

In addition, Bio2Coat's edible coating can help ingredients improve visual appearance, prevent fungal attack and retain nutritional value. Because the product is natural, odorless and tasteless, the startup claims the solution is more acceptable to consumers than other coatings that use food additives, such as E904 used for food preservation and display.

Image: foodnavigator

1. Plantable packaging

Typically, after food is eaten, the packaging is thrown away, causing multiple negative effects on the environment, so solutions are urgently needed.

Packaging made from biodegradable or compostable materials can reduce energy use and environmental harm, and may even bring new life. As a type of sustainable packaging, plantable packaging is made by embedding seeds into degradable materials; after use, it can be...