Holistic assessment and optimisation of packaging-free concepts for food retailing

Packaging for food is often perceived as an environmental burden, thus triggering the development of retail concepts that do not use single-use consumer packaging. These concepts usually wield a ´packaging-free´ label, although their logistics do utilize reusable bulk packages. Currently there are two types: pack-free versions of normal supermarkets and pack-free versions of home-delivery.

In their assortment they tend to focus on dry goods.From an environmental perspective, though, packaging cannot be seen in isolation. A product-packaging system with all the associated logistics and use phase has an intertwined environmental burden.

The mobility of the consumer, as well as resulting food waste need to be taken into account to do a meaningful comparison.Environmental assessment studies into ´packaging-free´ concepts are so far rare and are limited to the perspective of the packed product.

We will take a more holistic perspective, studying the fulfilment of the combined food needs of entire households.We will include different household compositions, as well as diets.In our study we will incorporate shopper mobility, container cleaning as well as food waste.

Hence, this study will incorporate standard life cycle assessment methods, although with a much broader system boundary, as well as studies into both likely as well as required changes in user practices (trips, cleaning, food waste, diet) in order to result in a system with a lower overall environmental impact.