Food insecurity is one of humanity’s most pressing challenges, impacting more than two billion people worldwide.
Paradoxically, as so many suffer from lack of access to food, more than 30 per cent of the world’s food is wasted each year, driven by inefficiencies in production, distribution and consumption.
Outdated, imprecise and often incorrect labelling systems — such as printed expiry dates — contribute to these huge problems, leading to the unnecessary disposal of safe, healthy food, increased greenhouse gas emissions and financial losses.
Addressing these crises requires bold investment in sustainable technologies that are already tested and available. These include smart food-packaging innovations that provide real-time food quality monitoring in every package. This would allow producers, retailers and consumers to receive up-to-date information through the package itself.
Real-time information
Unlike traditional expiration-date labels that communicate only time, food packaging innovations use advanced sensors and artificial intelligence to measure spoilage indicators such as pH balance, bacterial growth and biogenic amines. This allows for dynamic and up-to-the-minute tracking of food freshness.
These systems would increase food safety and prevent food fit for consumption from being thrown out. The early and highly specific warnings they provide would also reduce the need for costly and labour-intensive testing when problems occur.
Despite the promise of these scientifically proven systems, getting them into the marketplace is a significant challenge.
Corporations often resist smart packaging due to higher costs and tight profit margins in the highly competitive food sector.
Innovative solutions
However, the wider economic argument for smart packaging is compelling: food waste contributes to hundreds of billions of dollars in global annual losses, and smart solutions can reduce these losses substantially.
By quantifying the potential savings — such as reduced spoilage, fewer recalls, less food-related illness and lower legal liabilities — public and private stakeholders can understand why it’s valuable to share the cost of these innovations.
These technologies also align nicely with growing consumer demand for sustainability and transparency in food systems.
Reducing food waste through smart food packaging would lower greenhouse gas emissions, conserve agricultural resources and reduce the strain on global supply chains.
Such innovations can help improve food availability, especially in underserved regions where food insecurity is most acute, fostering healthier and more resilient communities.
Policymakers and industry leaders can create an appetite for change by regarding solutions as investments in people and the planet, not just profits.
Regulatory bodies must take bold steps, as we have seen in California’s elimination of “sell by” dates, which motivated producers to rethink their labelling strategies.
Governments can further incentivize smart food-packaging adoption through tax benefits, subsidies, or funding for companies to integrate real-time monitoring technologies. Such measures would make this beneficial change more economically viable for corporations.
Empowering consumers
Smart food packaging would also empower consumers to make informed decisions. Innovations such as AI-enabled apps that predict food freshness from smartphone photos can help households reduce waste by determining the safety of food without needing to open the package.
Smart packaging platforms should prioritize universal applications that work across food types, rather than niche, highly customized systems.
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Investing in sustainable innovations to address food insecurity would also deliver broader economic and environmental benefits. Reduced food waste translates to lower greenhouse gas emissions, less strain on agricultural systems and significant savings across supply chains.
For developing nations disproportionately affected by food insecurity, smart packaging technologies can be transformative, extending shelf life and improving distribution efficiency.
Collaboration across industry, academia and government is vital to getting these solutions into broad use.
Profit and societal benefits
Researchers and innovators must work with corporations to develop proven prototypes into cost-effective, high-performance technologies, while policymakers need to create frameworks to incentivize adoption. Investments must prioritize not just economic returns but also long-term societal benefits.
As a researcher developing smart food packaging platforms, I have seen firsthand how interdisciplinary partnerships accelerate the translation of bold ideas into practical solutions. I have led research teams that have developed technologies such as Lab-in-a-Package and sprayable bacteriophage microgels. These innovations simultaneously improve food safety and reduce waste.
Addressing food insecurity demands a holistic, sustainable approach that brings together technological innovation, supportive policies and societal awareness. By investing in smart, scalable solutions, we can transform our food systems to ensure less food is wasted.
- is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Nano-biomaterials, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University
- This article first appeared in The Conversation
