Description
Although there are studies on the environmental impacts at different stages of fish processing (mainly fishing and transport), impacts related to the packaging (materials/machinery) have not been studied extensively and are therefore not optimized. The overall objective of this project is to find new sustainable packaging solutions for the fish processing industry, in order to reduce the environmental impact by decreasing the production of greenhouse gases by 10 to 15%. The project will examine the entire process of fish packaging, studying materials, and machinery and their parameters that affect the product's shelf-life. Consumers and retailers will benefit from packaging specifically developed for fish products, economic savings, and reduction of energy costs, packaging materials and environmental impacts. The consortium subcontractor, NOFIMA, is a Norwegian Research Institute working on Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture. NOFIMA's task is to determine the requirements of the Norwegian fish packing industry and validate proposed solutions.
Summary of project results
All technical project objectives have been achieved. The project has led to important improvements for packaging inthe fish processing industry, including machine elements to improve the efficiency, reliability and reduce power consumption. Additionally, the project has enabled the organisation to acquire valuable knowledge. The technical achievements have been transferred to packaging solutions available to the market and are available for the industry. The generated knowledge can be the basis for future projects for extending the benefits to other packaging solutions and packaging equipment in general. The project improves the ability of the company and the industry by creating improved solutions and capabilities of high value and high energy efficiency.
Summary of bilateral results
The collaboration with NOFIMA (Norwegian Institute Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research) was framed in the identification of the requirements of the fish industry (specifically Norwegian) about sealing properties of plastic materials used in packaging of the mentioned industry. The activities of NOFIMA can be summarized as information sharing, information analysis, and presentation of conclusions.