Ecoinnovation in fresh food packaging: preliminary LCA results for high-pressure pasteurization process.

The increasing demand for a healthy diet calls for an evolution of the food processing chain, with special attention to fresh and organic products. Food packaging methods that extend the shelf life of products are being tested. The purpose of this research is to obtain evidence of the environmental impact that this technology causes in the agri-food chain. The case study refers to the technology introduced by the European project HO-FOOD, which develops a new High-Pressure pasteurization process using a high % of in the packaging atmosphere. The methodology used is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with a “farm-to-fork” approach. Explorative LCA considers the packaging of fresh melon and returns the environmental profile indicating that the melon preparation is the major cause of environmental impacts. It is planned to repeat the study considering both other types of product (almond and pumpkin) and the industrial scale to improve environmental performance.