Winners of the NTN Innovation Booster Ideation Campaign «Green, clean and smart plastic materials for food packaging»

Excessive packaging, especially in combination with convenience food and littering, has become an issue, instigating social and political pressure and calling for near-term solutions. “Bioplastics” are one possible element eventually providing a way out of the plastic problem. However, to address the topic of biopolymers in the context of food packaging, we must understand first the needs of the food industry. This is a crucial aspect the SATW has been pursuing for some time. In addition, the SATW invited the “biopolymer” community to forward ideas without previously specifying the needs and problems, which had been identified and communicated by the industry. In a joint action with the NTN Innovation Booster Swiss Food Ecosystems, the question how to develop and use green, clean and smart plastic materials for food packaging was put forward.

We received a set of ideas which were rated twice, once by a team of experts and once by the community. The titles of the top five proposals as well as the institutions where the authors work are listed below.

• Sustainable bioplastics packaging from protein fibril-biodegradable polymer blends, ETH Zürich
• Wool composites for sustainable packaging, HEIA Fribourg
• Development of biobased plastics from bacterial fermentation to produce food packaging from sustainable sources, HES-SO Sion
• Smart & personalized packaging, iPrint Marly
• Deinking and decoating of plastic food packaging for recycling, FHNW Muttenz

Each idea will be awarded with a maximum of 1’500.- Swiss Francs under the condition that the author(s) submit a short description on how they intend to further develop their idea. Each team is also invited to an individual discussion round with the experts to help them move their idea forward.

Contact us if you are interested in further details. In any case, we will keep you informed!

Hans‐Peter Meyer (Expertinova AG), SATW member and head of topical platform “Biotechnology/Bioinformatics” (see website, only in German available: Themenplattform Biotechnologie/Bioinformatik: SATW)