The United States wastes around 60 million tons of food per year [1] in the retail, food service, and residential sectors alone, enough to feed millions of people.
Food waste does not only happen at home or at a restaurant or a grocery store. In fact, approximately 14% of the world's food is wasted before it ever reaches the retail level. [2] During packaging and transit, food products are exposed to moisture, pressure, and impact damage, which can shorten their shelf life and increase the likelihood of spoilage, especially for fresh produce, dairy, and meat products.
You don’t necessarily need heavier and more rigid packaging to cut the amount of food you waste during transportation. While plastic crates and bulky containers may help protect products in transit, they can also increase environmental impact by increasing material use and waste.
York Container Company believes that corrugated packaging is a responsible path forward for retailers, manufacturers, and distributors who are serious about sustainability and food waste reduction.
Corrugated packaging is renewable, reusable, and recyclable. As part of the Atlantic Packaging family, York Container can provide containerboard made from 100% recycled paper, a practice that we have maintained since 1945. When packaging material re-enters the production cycle instead of a landfill, the environmental cost of every shipment goes down.
Beyond its well-known sustainability credentials, corrugated packaging is also a strategic choice if you want your products to arrive fresh at the grocery store or your customers' doorsteps.
- Corrugated packaging’s porous cellulosic fibers pull microbes into the board and wick away condensation, which prevents pathogen transfer from warehouse handling onto the primary packaging inside.
- The material’s inherent permeability allows collective VOCs and senescence-accelerating ethylene gas to passively diffuse out of the pallet load while absorbing excess interstitial humidity.
- Precise die-cut venting aligns ventilation channels so forced-air cooling systems can drive cold air directly through the master carton and strip field heat from primary packages efficiently.
Of course, corrugated packaging will not solve food waste on its own. But we believe that packaging decisions made early in the supply chain have a direct impact on how much food reaches the consumers.
Choosing packaging that is well-designed, right-sized, and made from responsible materials is one of the more concrete steps a food or beverage business can take to achieve our food management and sustainability goals.
[1] https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/