Eco-Friendliness Assessment Of Primary Food Packaging : A case study to assess relevant criteria and evaluate packaging options for sustainable development.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how food start-ups (FS) can make their primary food packaging (PFP) more eco-friendly by identifying and evaluating the performance of suited packaging alternative. The purpose was fulfilled by answering the three research questions: RQ1) How to assess the eco-friendliness of PFP? RQ2) Which are areas of improvement in environmental performance? RQ3) What are the differences in performance across similar PFP’s? Methods: To answer the research questions both the literature review and empirical data was required. The literature study was conducted to gather relevant theories about primary food packaging in food start-ups. To get the required empirical data, a single case study was conducted at a case company that suited the subject. The case study consisted of multiple interviews and document study. This enabled for an analysis in the form of pattern matching in order to answer the research questions and achieve the purpose. Findings: The Study found that to assess the PFP that have direct impact on the environment the functional features and the environmental framework play a central role in the eco- friendliness of PFPs which analyzed the requirements for the PFP and a multi criteria decision making approach for the environmental assessment for the Green-PE. The stakeholder expectations were found by analyzing the criterion for the PFP. In addition, a comparison for an eco-friendlier alternative was analyzed with the current Green-PE to justify the performance for the PFP in FS. Implications: The study results present practical implications with assessing the current Green-PE and evaluating the gaps for improvement areas, while also comparing similar PFP which is an eco-friendlier option for food packaging start-ups. As there has been no general theoretical implications, the findings of the thesis can be used as a basis for deeper insights into the subject through more extensive research. Delimitations & Scope: The focus was to identify and evaluate the current PFP environmental impact and not the other aspects of the life cycle assessment since the scope was limited. Also, a single case study was used rather than multiple case studies to analyze the eco-friendliness for PEPs.