The food industry faces a Catch-22: reducing plastic waste is essential for environmental targets, yet current alternatives often reduce shelf life, increase spoilage, or push up prices for both businesses and consumers.

Retailers and producers are squeezed between regulatory pressure, consumer demand for sustainability, and practical limitations of existing biodegradable or reusable solutions.

The root challenge is the absence of truly circular packaging ecosystems: most 'sustainable' solutions are either not fully recyclable, lack end-of-life processing, or are incompatible with large-scale food safety requirements.

The infrastructure for collection, cleaning, and reuse or upcycling is fragmented and inadequate.

Biodegradable or compostable packaging options exist but often underperform in food preservation or require specialized industrial composting.

Reusable packaging pilots lack scale due to collection and hygiene challenges.

Recycling rates for plastics remain low, and food-contaminated packaging is rarely recycled effectively.