Development of sustainable bionanocomposite materials for perishable foods & drinks shelf life extension: delivering better food for all

Food waste is a major global challenge, and the UK is no exception, having an estimated food waste of 9.5 Mtonnes in 2018\. This has a significant annual impact on the UK's environment (25 Mtonnes GHG), society (8.4M live with food insecurity) and economy (£19B loss). To tackle this challenge, the UK government has set targets such as reducing food waste by 50% by 2030\.

Around two-thirds of all food & drink packaging in the UK is made from plastic, the majority being single-use resulting in 3 Mtonnes of waste. These contribute towards vast amounts of GHG emissions (expected to reach 15% of GHG emissions by 2050), microplastic pollution (present in 90% of bottled water globally), and accumulation in landfills (86% ends up in landfill). Leading to two-thirds of consumer packaging stakeholders signing up to the UK Plastics Pacts, looking for more sustainable, affordable and efficient packaging solutions.

Healthy food accessibility is still also a major economic barrier being around 3x more expensive than unhealthy options. Together with high sustainable packaging costs (50% more expensive than synthetic counterparts), there are no commercial benefits for suppliers and consumers to change UK eating habits.

Metalchemy will develop an advanced bionanocomposite material aimed towards food packaging for nutritious products (e.g meat, fruits, vegetables and fortified products, juices) to improve food shelf-life, affordability, nutrition and safety whilst being biodegradable. Our technology integration aims to match key properties of synthetic plastics, prevent nutrient loss and avoid fungi and bacteria growth.

Benefits of Metalchemy's packaging include:

* Improved food nutritional value will boost public health, reduce healthcare costs and NHS burden.
* Food waste reduction will reduce economic losses for both businesses and consumers, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and increase the UK supply chain resilience.
* Plastic waste will be reduced through its replacement with sustainable packaging.

Metalchemy owns patented green silver nanotechnology and has know-how in bionanocomposite development to deliver the outputs of this project. We will complement our team with experts in food science from the Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Reading, partners in this project. By pursuing food safety certification for our packaging and collaborating with industrial food institutions, we will remain focused on an affordable and sustainable bionanocomposite to enhance food quality and shelf-life.

The development of our technology will overcome current bioplastics limitations, improve food availability and quality, and make the UK the global leader in affordable nutritious foods.