Towards Zero Plastic Packaging in Food Industry

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Plastic is polluting oceans, affecting human health, wildlife, and biodiversity. Unfortunately, it is still the most common materials used for packaging of food powders due to the fact it keeps a suitable atmosphere inside the package that is conducive to the preservation of the nutrients in the food and extends the shelf life. The high sensitivity of some types of food is challenging for the industry to reduce the plastic's amount used in packaging. These challenging difficulties requiring scientific and engineering research to deliver a new structure of the material and/or new manufacturing process which offers the opportunity to stop the need for plastic packaging.The aim of this project is to reduce/remove the need for using plastic packaging by first, increasing the shelf life and hence the stability of food powder, Coffee as an example, which will be investigated using different manufacturing approaches such as restructuring by granulation techniques and second by using sustainable packaging materials which will reduce the environmental foot print.The aim of the research program is to produce a step-change in our understanding of the manufacturing process, material science and product properties of the food powders and how this affects the subsequent behaviour.