The Environmental Issues Relating to Packaging in the UK Food Sector

This dissertation's objective is to explore a practical and cost-effective way to alleviate the environmental burden coming from food and food packaging industries, to establish a win-win solution between the call for environmental-friendly packaging and the producers' actual cost. To achieve this aim, the author implemented both primary and secondary research methods, and has recorded her findings according to these two kinds of researches in Chapter 4. Combining the findings with her academic background, the author gives her recommendations from industry logistics and supply chain perspectives. Environmental issues have been a serious topic in the food packaging industry in recent years. The previous researches are mainly based on food packaging's chemical ingredients or analyzing packaging as an isolated entity. This dissertation is based on these established outcomes, analyzing food packaging as a sub-system of the food supply chain, and measuring its environmental influences from its four functions. The author tries to find out features within packaging's functions which have relations with the environment. On the primary research aspect, the writer implemented an email interview with a food producer, and obtained the first-hand information from the producer on their views of environmental-friendly packaging. Based on the findings, the author's suggestions are to further deepen green packaging concepts in the packaging design phase, and implement lean techniques more comprehensively in packaging production; and finally she introduces reverse logistics on the packaging re-processing stage. These new concepts in the area of business logistics and supply chain can assist the food packaging industry to become cleaner and more effective and efficient