Reducing Waste with Food Packaging
Food waste is a big problem, with many of us guilty of throwing away more food than we eat, often over-stocking on perishable goods. Being a leading supplier of flexible packaging and food packaging, Flex-Pack has a few ideas on how to generally reduce your food waste, while also helping to reduce packaging material waste too.
An Empty Stomach Can Mean a Full Cart
One of the most insidious and difficult to avoid causes of food waste is over-shopping. We have all found ourselves in a situation where, on the way home from work, we need to stop in at the supermarket for something small. It might just be milk, or a loaf of bread, or even something totally unrelated to food. But on an end-of-the-day empty stomach, you suddenly start thinking of all kinds of things you “need”, and end up with a full cart of food.
More often than not, a lot of this food will be thrown out either partially eaten, or totally untouched. Shopping on an empty stomach makes buying food much more tempting, and avoiding it 100% of the time is almost impossible – but keeping it in mind can help. Try and make a list of what you know you need and restrict yourself to it. Better yet, avoid going alone – just make sure whoever goes with you isn’t hungry too!
Portion Control and Resealing Your Snacks
Another key ingredient in food waste is overly large portions. In addition to over-shopping for snacks when hungry, we might also find ourselves getting bigger boxes or packets of things that will end up going to waste. Fortunately, one of the benefits of flexible food packaging such as stand-up pouches is that they are designed to be resealable.
Being able to re-seal food packaging means longer shelf-life, and an easier time saving snacks and edible items for later. Both of these factor into reducing food waste, as you are far less likely to throw away food that is packed to last longer.
Longer Lasting Leftovers
Speaking of lasting longer – how many times have you made a bigger dish, only to have more than you thought left over? Having leftovers is great – it saves you time and money, along with the effort of having to cook every day, or relying on fast food. However, stacking plastic tubs in the fridge quickly takes up space, and you will inevitably end up throwing food away just to make room for something new.
Using resealable, flexible food packaging for leftovers is another method of greatly reducing food waste. Not only does it save on storage space, but, once again, it can make even your leftovers last longer. You can also keep more unconventional foods in more flexible packaging – how many brands of soup have you seen in stand up pouches, instead of cans? As long as you make sure you seal them properly, even liquids like soup, or foods like chili, can be saved with space-saving solutions.
Reducing Food Waste with Food Packaging
Reducing food waste and reducing how much materials are used and discarded in the packaging of edible products are an important part of a greener, more eco-friendly era. Flex-Pack understands how important it is to not only reduce the amount of food you throw away for the sake of your wallet, but also the sake of our environment. If you are looking for innovate and improve with your food packaging, contact Flex-Pack and get started today.
