Sustainable packaging technology to improve food safety

In this paper, we introduce an innovative packaging technology to develop sustainable packages to significantly improve food safety in the supply chain. The technology is referred to as sustainable because it also addresses the socioeconomic and environmental requirements of sustainability. The technology has four components: the first three components involve using modified atmosphere packaging, controlled release packaging, and ecofriendly packaging to develop novel materials to construct packages, while the fourth component involves using a decision support system to facilitate package design. A conceptual framework of this technology is also provided to illustrate how the knowledge of food science, packaging technology, materials science, and information technology can be integrated in a systematic manner to improve food safety in the supply chain. The development of this technology requires the concerted efforts of researchers from several disciplines, and there are great opportunities for researchers of information systems to contribute to developing the hardware and software necessary for this technology.