PACKAGING AS A PART OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY STRATEGIES IN FOOD COLD SUPPLY CHAINS

Cold supply chains are an important part where perishable food can be transported and kept fresh until it reaches the desired destination. The lack of these systems which provide the necessary temperatures can lead to large food loss, which has multiple consequences from hunger to increased environmental impacts in the form of waste of invested greenhouse gases during production. The strategies of keeping the food under a certain temperature can be achieved by active, passive and hybrid systems combining electrical components (coolers and freezers) and packaging materials in the form of insulating materials. The energy consumption of the cooling devices is running in many cases on fossil fuel sources and requires energy efficiency to achieve decarbonization efforts. On the other hand, certain passive packaging systems are made from materials which are not yet fully recyclable on the scale throughout the EU. In the paper, an overview of potential energy efficiency strategies combining hybrid systems (electric and packaging) are presented with possible savings in energy and carbon footprint values