Assessing baby leaf kale (Brassica oleracea) waste production mitigation in the transition to sustainable packaging with the application of silicon through an integrative model of quality

This research builds a mathematical modelling to assess food waste production when designing sustainable packaging solutions integrated with an agricultural intervention in kale production. The model utilizes experimental data obtained from simulated retail and distribution storage conditions to assess the probability of the product to be found out of technical specification and becoming waste. The packaging design was made using a system of differential equations describing the gas exchanges inside the packaging. The waste was estimated fitting linear mixed effect models to the postharvest experimental data, accounting for the variability between and within groups. A field experiment with kale treated with silicon during growth as a bio stimulant was used with the aim to make the product more resilient to packaging conditions. The Kale was then packaged in polylactic acid and oriented polypropylene for postharvest testing. Technological thresholds that indicate out-of-specification product were used to estimate the percentage of product that would likely end up as food waste. In total 7.2% of the product was found to be out of specification with the PLA film after 7 days. Silicon treatment was able to reduce this value to negligible, demonstrating the ability of agricultural interventions to facilitate sustainable packaging and reducing food waste in horticultural products.