Packoby, New Sustainable Food Packaging

The exploration of new sustainable solutions continues with Packoby, a compostable food packaging created from food waste. Food production generates a significant amount of “waste material” that is usually discarded, while the demand for alternatives to traditional plastic packaging continues to grow. In a new research project called SAVE FOOD, students at Bahçeşehir University (BAU) in Istanbul have developed interesting ideas on this topic. (cover by Constanze Tillmann, Messe Düsseldorf, Interpack 2023)

The team - İrem Çavuş, industrial designer, Boutheina Zender, bioengineer, and Merve Mutlu, industrial engineering student - created PACKOBY, a biofilm made with food by-products and scoby (a product of kombucha tea fermentation) for packaging dry foods. This innovative project focuses on producing biodegradable food packaging, using waste and by-products from the food industry. What sets Packoby apart from other packaging solutions on the market is its compostability: unlike biodegradable packaging which decomposes up to 90%, Packoby fully decomposes 100%. A “low cost, good quality, non-toxic solution", says the team.

The project was conducted in collaboration with Messe Düsseldorf GmbH and CIFAL Istanbul, part of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, UNITAR. Packoby was also presented at Interpack 2023 within the Spotlight Talks & Trends forum, held in Germany.

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