A systematic review of consumer perceptions of smart packaging technologies for food

About this resource: Consumer demand for natural products and increasingly extended and diverse supply chains means that traditional packaging is becoming less capable of meeting the functional demands placed on it. Smart packaging, an emerging technology in the food packaging industry, incorporates both active and intelligent technologies. To help ensure the commercial success of proposed smart packaging technologies a thorough understanding of consumers' attitudes toward them is required. This systematic review of 28 peer-reviewed journal articles summarises the current knowledge on consumer acceptance or rejection of active packaging (packaging that maintains or extends the quality and shelf life of a product) and intelligent packaging (packaging that monitors the condition of the packaged food to give information about the quality of the product) as well as the behavioural forces behind those attitudes. To develop a conceptual framework for understanding consumer preferences for smart packaging, the identified themes were integrated with several consumer behaviour models including the theory of planned behaviour and an attitude model.

Food Waste Innovation Authors: Erin Young, Miranda Mirosa and Phil Bremer

Citation: Young, E., Mirosa, M. & Bremer, P. (2020) A systematic review of consumer perceptions of smart packaging technologies for food. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, section Sustainable Food Processing.