Packaging ‘really critical’ for WA fruit and vege growers for marketing and food safety

Eliminating fruit and vegetable packaging would do more harm than good for the environment and cost WA growers thousands in food waste, according to an industry expert. And the State Government needs to step up to help WA’s $900 million horticulture industry find solutions for the “complex” problem. Packaging — whether plastic, cardboard or paper — is not only an important communicator for growers in their mission to stand out in the market, but protects produce along the supply chain from farm to plate. Without it, food would get damaged by the time it reaches shelves, leading to huge amounts of food waste and ultimately dipping into farmers’ pockets. Speaking at the Horticulture Update this month, Marvelus Fruit chief executive Brett Heather said growers were faced with a dilemma when it came to packaging, with food safety, environmental impact and economics all coming into play. “Packaging is really critical for a number of different reasons,” he said. “It protects the product from the point of it being packed out on-farm right the way through to the retail shelf. “It can have holes in it for cooling so we get better storage life and better shelf life for the consumer as it’s all about quality. “It also allows for branding of product, which is really important. “This whole talk about just stripping plastic out, it doesn’t understand the intricacies of what that actually means in terms of food waste, the environmental damage food waste has— the water, fertiliser, power, trucking, petrol, and a huge cost to farmers.” Mr Heather said removing packaging would make it very difficult for consumers to know where their food came from or whether it was organic. He said it would also make it difficult for growers’ produce to stand out and lead to food waste. “Having no packaging, there’s a lot of negatives,” Mr Heather said. He urged consumers to think about how much money went into producing a product, from the land, water, energy, fertiliser and transport. “(And) then it goes into a bin with the retailer, or it goes in the bin with the consumer,” he said. “There’s a huge amount of cost there so taking food waste out and minimising it is a really important part of the conversation,” he said. Mr Heather said packaging issues were not as simple as swapping plastic for paper. “I was speaking to a guy and he said, ‘if I order a sleeve of paper bags, I might get 1000, in the same sleeve I can get 10,000 plastic bags,” he said. “That’s 10 times the trucks that have to go on the road, 10 times the ships if you’re importing ... you’ve got these really negative elements to some of these options that may seem more sustainable and environmentally friendly.” “If you look at the paper manufacturing side of things, it takes a huge amount of energy and water, where are you getting your paper from, what forest are you essentially chopping down. “It’s complex — it’s not as straightforward as your average consumer might think.” He said the likely best solutions were compostable packaging or recycling, but the State Government needed to invest in the facilities and technology so it could be done on home soil.