S3 Partnership Food Packaging

Accelerating the shift to a sustainable and resilient food packaging value chain through interregional collaboration on a European level

Context

Packaging plays a central role in building a sustainable and resilient food system. By protecting food quality and safety throughout the shelf life, food packaging helps to reduce food waste. However, the packaging itself must evolve to meet Europe’s sustainability goals.

The European Green Deal sets ambitious targets, including:

• Ensuring all packaging on the EU market is reusable or recyclable in an economically viable manner by 2030;
• Defining clear measures to reduce packaging waste;
• Promoting the use of recycled content in packaging materials.

Achieving these goals demands more than innovation, it requires intense interregional collaboration across the entire food packaging value chain.

The role of the S3 Partnership Food Packaging

The S3 Partnership Food Packaging brings together leading food, packaging and food packaging clusters from across Europe. Our mission is to catalyze the transition to a resilient and sustainable food packaging value chain, guided by the 5 R’s: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Renewable. To accelerate this transition, we focus on key themes such as:

• Functional food packaging that extends shelf life and maintains food safety;
• Circular food packaging aligned with EU sustainability goals;
• Legislation, including harmonization efforts to enable innovation across borders.
Through interregional collaboration and knowledge exchange, we strengthen regional innovation capacity and help companies engage in cross-border projects, co-develop solutions, and access funding for sustainable packaging investments.

Our shared objectives include:
• Fostering innovation through cross-border networking and knowledge exchange;
• Supporting interregional innovation projects and investments;
• Promoting harmonized policy discussions and strategic investment alignment;
• Creating a trusted platform for matchmaking and funding alignment.

Partners

Learn more

For more information about the S3 Partnership Food Packaging, visit the official EC Page: S3 Community of Practice – Food Packaging.
To learn more about our regional role or activities within the Partnership, feel free to contact: yuan.chai@wagralim.be