E1957- Seaweed-based flexible and home-compostable food packaging

SeaweedPack har fokusert på å utvikle nye og sirkulære filmer basert på tang og tare som kan brukes i kontakt med næringsmidler. Målet var å utvikle egnede filmer med de nødvendige barriere- og mekaniske- egenskapene for industrien, og fokuset har vært på produksjon av termoformede brett. I dette prosjektet har også produksjonsprosessen blitt optimalisert for å kunne produsere i stor skala, slik industrien krever.

This project has allowed us to reached a TRL 7 for our seaweed based thermoformable sheets which can be converted easily to trays to be used in the food industry. During the project migration tests were performed confirming the ability to use these materials for dry and greasy foods. With a certified lab, the materials were confirmed to be biodegradable. Shelf life studies with blueberries was performed and results showed that the tray performed similar to conventional plastic in preserving the berries.

In the proposed project the two SMEs, B'ZEOS (NO) and Moses (ES), which specialize in the development of seaweed-based food packaging and its manufacturing and testing, respectively, will jointly work on finding technically and economically viable solutions for making flexible and home compostable food packaging films based on seaweed extracts. Our films can be used alone or as barrier coatings on paper substrates and have similar properties to the existing non-compostable plastic materials used for food packaging. Particularly, as learned from our conversations with stakeholders such as Nestlé, we will mature our technology to ensure that our film will have good mechanical, barrier, and compostability properties. In a previous project (i.e. PlastiSea - Novel enhanced bioplastics from sustainable processing of seaweed), the consortium has managed to manufacture continuous films, validating the technology in an industrially relevant environment. Therefore, the starting TRL of this project is 5.