Intelligent label – a new way to support food waste reduction

Approximately 20% of meat and meat products is wasted. One important reason for the waste of perishable meat products is incorrect handling, such as improper storage or missing information about the real quality status. In order to decrease the amount of food waste, the application of intelligent packaging solutions such as time–temperature indicators is discussed with increasing frequency. In this paper, the impact of intelligent label application in a typical poultry supply chain, with special regard to sustainable food production, is demonstrated. The results show that the additional information provided by a time–temperature indicator leads to a reduction of food waste. The amount of food waste (12%) and the waste reduction due to the implementation of the time–temperature indicator (35%) is defined based on expert interviews. The overall amount of waste and waste reduction is calculated for each step of a defined German poultry supply chain. The impact of the waste reduction on selected environmental parameters is also calculated. Furthermore a system is developed to calculate the cost and benefits for intelligent label application for each step in the chain.