Product packaging, and food packaging in particular, can impact food waste, sustainability and efficiency to a large extent. So much so that incorrect packaging can lead to a level of food waste that can cut into as much as 10% of food retailer's profits.

Yet, there may be a double-edged solution that simultaneously deals with both uneconomical packaging and food waste at the same time. This solution takes the form of edible packaging. Yes, packaging made from excess food!

A burgeoning amount of entrepreneurs and researchers are attempting to transform foods like mushrooms, kelp, milk and tomato peels into edible, if not always palatable, replacements for plastics, coatings and other packaging materials. For example, The United States Department of Agriculture is endowing the idea of pizza with extra cheese with a totally new connotation: a team at its research laboratory in Wyndmoor, Pa., has come up with a material from milk protein that can be employed to line pizza boxes, encase cheese or create, for instance, soluble soup packets that can simply be dropped in hot water.

© Ecovative / www.ecovativedesign.com

Another example of such innovative packaging comes from Ecovative, a design company in Green Island, N.Y. It makes a molded material made from mushrooms. This product is manufactured using the mycelium fungus that forms the roots of mushrooms as they grow in environments like piles of dead leaves or compost. Ecovative grows the fungus in a variety of substances, which lead to materials of different strengths, flexibility and durability.

Over the past several years, governments have discreetly bankrolled efforts to develop packaging from food. The EU, which underwrote a project to develop coatings from whey and potato proteins from 2011 to 2015, estimates that the global market for so-called bioplastics is growing by as much as 30% each year. According to Credence Research, "the bioplastic packaging market has been estimated to be valued at US$ 6,765.9 Mn by the end of 2016, and is expected to reach US$ 46,490.5 Mn by 2023, expanding at a CAGR of 31.7% from 2016 to 2023."

Part of the reason why the bioplastic market is expected to grow so much is because of consumers' increasing concern for environmental wellbeing in addition to manufacturer's efforts to reduce costs. Not only are bioplastics cheaper in general, but the amount that they save in terms of food waste is enough to warrant significant research into the phenomenon.

© Goodmoments / bigstockphoto.com

Bringing such products to market, however, is a challenge. The Agriculture Department tried to build interest in a milk-protein-based product more than a decade ago but found no takers, says research leader Dr. Peggy Tomasula. High R&D costs and the fact that it was susceptible to moisture made it a hard sell.

"Edible films were just getting started then, and there were a lot of people playing around with them," she said. "But food waste and food security weren't big issues then, and nobody really seemed to notice them."

There is enormous scope for such a market, the only issue is raising the funds to invest enough capital into proper research and refinement of quality products if this idea is to be successful.