Fresh Produce Industry Leaders Release Guide for Sustainable Packaging
October 7, 2025 
Photo: Adobe Stock
The Sustainable Produce Packaging Alignment (SPPA), a consortium of North American fresh produce industry leaders, published its “Roadmap to Sustainable Fresh Produce Packaging: A Guide to Reducing Food Waste, Mitigating Emissions, and Enabling Sustainable Fresh Produce Supply Chains.” This guide aims to create a unified, industry-wide approach to more functional, economical, and sustainable packaging.
A diverse group of fresh produce industry experts developed the roadmap, spearheaded by Western Growers and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association (CPMA), supported by Qfresh Lab. The roadmap confronts the complex and often contradictory challenges facing the fresh produce sector, including a fragmented regulatory landscape, contradictory buyer requirements, and the performance gap between conventional and alternative packaging materials.
A central theme of the report is the concept of “Functional Sustainability,” which advocates for a holistic evaluation of packaging based on its performance throughout the entire supply chain, rather than focusing predominantly on its end-of-life disposal. The authors argue that a narrow focus on recyclability or compostability can paradoxically increase food waste and greenhouse gas emissions.
The roadmap details the significant risks posed by incongruent regulations and market requirements, which can lead to supply chain inefficiencies, increased costs for growers, and negative environmental outcomes. It calls for a shift in perspective, urging the industry, retailers, and policymakers to recognize that packaging plays a critical role in ensuring food safety and extending shelf life.
Key recommendations from the “Roadmap to Sustainable Fresh Produce Packaging” include:
- Committing to Functional Sustainability: Prioritizing a package’s ability to protect and preserve the food it contains as the most critical element of its sustainability.
- Driving Targeted Innovation: Investing in new materials and technologies tailored to the specific needs of different produce commodity groups.
- Advocating for Pragmatic Policy: Working collectively for science-based regulations that reward positive environmental outcomes, such as reduced food waste.
The roadmap also introduces a novel approach of grouping fresh produce commodities by shared functional requirements (robust, resilient, delicate, and highly perishable) to promote innovation and enhance supply chain efficiency. The next steps for this work include the development of supplementary materials that dive into critical topics in sustainable fresh produce packaging.
To read the full report, go here: https://go.wga.com/sppa-sustainable-produce-packaging-alignment.