Food packaging during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Consumer perceptions

Abstract

While plastics play an important role in the safety, shelf‐life, and affordability of many foods, their mismanagement as waste presents a serious environmental problem. In 2019, governments in Canada and globally were poised to take legislative action to curb the use of single‐use plastics, with strong public support. However, the COVID‐19 pandemic has since disrupted those initiatives as well as the public sentiment underlying them. The aim of our study is to measure changes in Canadian consumers’ attitudes toward single‐use plastic food packaging, from Summer 2019 to Summer 2020. The methodology relies on two, representative surveys of the Canadian population, carried out in May 2019 (n = 1,094) and in June 2020 (n = 977). Our measures explored potential impacts on consumer perceptions, driven both by new food safety concerns during the pandemic and also by increased price consciousness during a time of economic recession. We found that 55% of respondents were more concerned about food safety since COVID‐19, and that 50% of respondents had become more price conscious when buying groceries. However, we found only a slight decline in motivation to reduce plastics – though with a sharper reduction among males. A stronger shift was seen in attitudes towards policy, where our results show a clear decline in support for tighter regulations or bans on single‐use plastics, along with an increase in consumers’ willingness to pay for biodegradable alternatives. These findings suggest a more difficult road ahead for legislative approaches, but also potential opportunities for market‐based strategies and innovations in the food sector.

Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Ecosystem Services, Sustainable Development Goals, and Need to Focus on Circular Economy and Policy Interventions

“…In the shorter term, focusing on improvement of the waste collection and management can help; however, in the longer term, a more sustainable solution will be moving toward a circular economy to remove waste and single-use plastic out of the production cycle and focus on building the producer's responsibility models with new product design that would enable reuse, recycling, and minimizing plastic packages. It was estimated that about 50% of plastic is produced for single-use, and the majority of them are being used for food packaging [2][3][4]. Stefanini et al [256] reported that glass packaging, which is eco-friendly and easier to recycle, is a potential alternative for reducing marine litter; however, the use of glass is not increasing due to high energy demand.…”

Food Safety Economics in the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…However, this is one area where the current situation is better than the 20 th century crisis. COVID-19's mortality rate is significantly lower than that of the Spanish flu (Kitz et al, 2021).…”

Changes in Dietary Patterns and Clinical Health Outcomes in Different Countries during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

“…A review article suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers and policy makers responded to an increased perception of the risk to food safety by increasing their dependence on disposable plastic packaging. Attitudes towards food packaging have major implications for both food and environmental policy, thus feeding the need for smart, biodegradable, and safe packaging [ 169 ].…”