Identifying the Drivers of Circular Food Packaging: A Comprehensive Review for the Current State of the Food Supply Chain to Be Sustainable and Circular

Abstract

The resilience of food systems is jeopardized by using food packaging materials that have adverse impacts on the environment, food quality, food safety, shelf-life, food loss, and waste. Therefore, a transition into a more sustainable system can only be possible by adopting circular economy principles and practices that can facilitate the elimination of unsustainable packaging, irresponsible disposal behaviors, and waste management. This paper mainly focuses on circular packaging practices in the existing literature to reveal the drivers of circular food packaging applications. The study also displays the triple combinations of material-sector, material-CE, and sector-CE principles. As a methodology, a systematic literature review (SLR) has been used for this study. Furthermore, this study investigates the literature findings, such as the most frequently mentioned food sector and sub-sector, CE principles, materials adopted for food packaging, and so on. The primary contribution of this study to the body of literature is the synthesis and mapping of the literature as a whole from the perspectives of CE principles, both sector-based and national, and the materials used through circular food packaging, and the attempt to facilitate this transition into a more circular system by outlining the drivers of circular food packaging.