INKtelliPack: Ensuring Food Safety and Reducing Waste with Smart Packaging
Objective
A third of all food produced globally is wasted—costing the economy over €800 billion each year and generating up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Much of this waste happens because food packaging fails unnoticed, cold chain breaks go undetected, and expiration dates are set with overly cautious margins due to a lack of real-time information. Traditional quality checks are costly, slow, and destructive, leaving manufacturers and retailers with limited tools to ensure product safety and reduce waste.
Solution
INKtelliPack by ColorSensing is a smart, affordable, and easy-to-use packaging technology designed to tackle these problems. At its heart is a smart QR label with built-in color-changing inks that respond to key freshness and safety indicators like CO₂ (leak detection) and temperature (cold chain control). These inks act like mini-sensors. A simple photo of the label—taken with any smartphone—lets the system translate the ink colors into accurate data on packaging integrity, product freshness, or storage conditions.
In its first application, already reaching TRL6, the system monitors CO₂ levels inside sealed packages, helping manufacturers detect leaks without destroying the product. Future developments include inks that detect food spoilage and cold chain breaches.
Practical Benefits
- Cut waste by identifying real-time spoilage risks and reducing unnecessary product disposal.
- Improve food safety and traceability by detecting problems early and maintaining quality across the supply chain.
- Lower costs by replacing destructive testing with fast, non-invasive checks.
- Scale easily, as the system uses standard packaging, smartphones, and cloud software—no need for expensive equipment.
Recommendations for Use
- Use smart labels to automate quality checks without product loss.
- Monitor shipments to catch cold chain failures before products reach shelves.
- Extend shelf life and reduce recalls by reacting to real-time freshness data, not fixed expiry dates.
Additional information
Authors: María Eugenia Martín, Miriam Marchena, Isaac Expósito
Affiliation: ColorSensing, Barcelona, Spain
Transparency solutions for transforming the food system
Ongoing | 2022-2026
- Main funding source
- Horizon Europe (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
- Geographical location
- Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, Finland, Poland, United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, Serbia