SUMMARYThis study describes a holistic methodology for sustainable packaging design. This methodology studies the combined systems of packaging and the packaged products across the whole distribution chain from manufacturer to end consumer and the life cycle from raw material extraction to the waste phase. It contains a number of indicators that are grouped into the following main categories: environmental sustainability, distribution costs, product protection, market acceptance and user friendliness. The methodology integrates a number of different analytical methods. It is intended to be used in packaging design and optimisation, for idea generation, decision support and as documentation of properties of existing packaging systems. The study describes experiences with the methodology from one case study in the Norwegian Food Industry. The experiences show that the methodology is very comprehensive, and gives a good overview of the properties of a packaging solution. It enables quantitative comparisons between different packaging solutions throughout the design process. The methodology reduces the risk of implementing sub-optimal packaging solutions. An additional benefi t of the methodology is gained by working in cross-functional teams. One potential drawback is that the methodology can be resource and data intensive. The methodology can be used as a tool box in packaging design, i.e. it is not necessary to use all methods and quantify all indicators to gain benefi t.

The ambient oxygen ingress rate method (AOIR) is an alternative method to OxTran for measuring the oxygen transmission rates (OTR) of whole packages. The objective of the present work was (a) to compare OTR values obtained by the two methods, and (b) to evaluate the use of the AOIR method for measuring OTR at realistic food storage temperatures and humidity levels. The AOIR method gave equal OTR values compared to the Ox-Tran method for the ®ve different types of whole packages used in the experiment, with OTR values in the range 0.06±1.48 ml O 2 /day. The repeatability of the AOIR method measured on an HDPE bottle was AE2.6% of the measured value in this experiment. This is slightly higher than the general speci®cations of the Ox-Tran method (1% of reading for packages). However, the AOIR method can be considered to be a reliable, precise and cheap alternative method to the Ox-Tran method for measuring OTR of whole packages. The capacity of the method is also high. The AOIR method showed satisfactory results when comparing OTR for packages tested under realistic food storage conditions covering 23°C/50% relative humidity (RH) and at 4°C/60% RH on the outside, combined with water (100% RH) or dry air inside the packages.

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Determination of O 2 and CO 2 transmission rate of whole perforated packages. Determination of O 2 and CO 2 transmission rate for single perforations. The ratio P CO2 /P O2 was different for non-perforated and perforated materials. Temperature had limited effect on transmission rates for perforations.

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