In the nexus of sustainability, circular economy and food industry: Circular food package design

Abstract

In these days, when the concepts of sustainability and circular economy are extremely prevalent, the most critical issue to be addressed is food. Since food is a basic need, circular economy practices have become extremely important, especially in food packaging. Not only the robustness or minimization of the package, but also the fact that the material used can be evaluated within the scope of circular economy ensures that food packaging is sustainable. Therefore, the first aim is to investigate the impact of food packaging design on sustainability. Moreover, to determine the relationship between circularity and food packaging design, and to minimize the conflicting food packaging design characteristics against sustainability by circular design are other aims of this study. With this aim, Quality Function Deployment method is applied for 29 consumer expectations about circular food packaging design (What's) and 34 technical requirements for these expectations for circular food packaging design (How's). The novelty of this study, since food packaging design is a newly discussed topic, it is important to consider the customer and technical expectations together in terms of circularity and sustainability. As a result, the most important consumer expectations are determined and relationship is presented with technical requirements each other. It is expected that this study will be beneficial for managers and practitioners.