Context

Ensuring 100% of plastic packaging marketed in 2030 is recyclable, compostable or reusable requires investment in sustainable solutions that involve efficient use of resources, without compromising the shelf life of packaged foods or consumer safety.
The MATSOS project aims to meet this challenge by developing new structures of more sustainable plastic materials for the packaging of fresh, cooked and cured meat products, following EU Regulation 10/2011.
In order to improve the sustainability of plastic packaging used for packaging the meat products of interest, work was conducted in different areas, such as: reducing the amount of virgin material needed for its manufacture by reducing the weight of the packaging and/or using post-consumption recycled plastic; use of monomaterials, removal of sealing layers and/or barriers and replacing them with adhesives; coatings or alternative barriers in multilayer materials in order to facilitate subsequent recycling; and even the use of raw materials from renewable sources for the manufacture of compostable packaging.
The new plastic materials were obtained through transformation techniques such as extrusion, co-extrusion, extrusion-coating and lamination.
The meat products in the study used modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) or vacuum packaging by means of different packaging systems (flow-pack, thermoformed and thermosealed) with the materials developed with variable mechanical properties and gas/humidity barriers, depending on the preservation requirements for each type of product, to observe their behaviour during packaging (machinability) and shelf life (sensory and microbiological) compared to those currently used.