Evolution and Impact of Plastic Packaging Materials in the Food Industry

Every time you pick up a vacuum-sealed pack of chicken breast or a cling-wrapped tray of ground beef at the supermarket, you’re holding the result of over 160 years of materials science. The story of plastic packaging in food – especially meat – is not just about chemistry. It’s about how a series of accidental discoveries and deliberate innovations gradually replaced glass, wood, and wax paper with lighter, cheaper, and far more versatile materials. Understanding this history helps explain why plastic became so dominant, and why that dominance now comes with hard questions.

Where it all began: Parkesine and the birth of man-made plastic 🔗

The journey starts in 1862 in Birmingham, England. Alexander Parkes, a metallurgist and inventor, publicly demonstrated a new material at the Great International Exhibition in London. He called it Parkesine. It was an organic material derived from cellulose that could be heated, moulded, and would retain its shape once cooled – the foundational concept behind every thermoplastic we use today.

Parkesine was a semi-synthetic thermoplastic based on cellulose nitrate, which could be chemically modified to be hard, flexible, or even rubber-like. Parkes marketed it as a cheaper alternative to rubber and ivory. His firm, however, went bankrupt in 1868 before the material could be commercialised at scale. But the concept didn’t die with his company.

His invention was taken up and developed by others, most notably American businessman John Wesley Hyatt, who founded the Celluloid Manufacturing Company in the US. Hyatt refined Parkesine into celluloid – the first commercially successful plastic. Celluloid found early use in photography and cinema but had limited food packaging applications due to its flammability. Still, it proved that synthetic materials could substitute for natural ones, setting the direction for everything that followed.

Cellophane: the first plastic to enter the food aisle 🔗

The real turning point for food packaging came in the early 20th century with the development of cellophane. In 1900, researcher Edwin Brandenberger had the idea of creating transparent packaging for food and used viscose to develop cellophane – the first perfectly watertight flexible film.

The real commercial breakthrough came in 1927, when DuPont scientist William Hale Charch and his team figured out how to make cellophane moisture-proof, opening the door for its use in food packaging. This single innovation changed how consumers shopped. Before cellophane, people depended entirely on the grocer or butcher to choose food for them. The transparent film allowed consumers to see products before purchase – a shift that fundamentally changed retail food culture.

Cellophane was not polyethylene-based like most modern plastics, but it normalised the idea of transparent, flexible plastic wrapping in food retail. It laid the groundwork for the mass adoption of plastic packaging that would follow over the next several decades.

Polystyrene and polyethylene: the plastics that scaled up food packaging 🔗

Polystyrene (1930) 🔗

Styrene was first distilled from a balsam tree as early as 1831, but Germany refined the manufacturing process in 1933, and by the 1950s polystyrene foam was available worldwide. Polystyrene brought something genuinely new to food packaging: insulation. Its lightweight nature and ability to be moulded into trays, cups, and containers made it a natural fit for the food service sector.

Polystyrene can be used as a foam material, making it lightweight and insulating for hot beverages and takeout containers. In its rigid form, it is used for plastic cutlery and clear plates, bowls, and food containers. In meat packaging specifically, polystyrene trays are used as the base for stretchable wrapping film in grocery and restaurant meat containers. The familiar white foam tray under a cellophane-wrapped piece of chicken or beef? That’s polystyrene at work – a design that has remained largely unchanged since mid-century supermarkets.

Polyethylene (1933) 🔗

Polyethylene was invented in 1933 by ICI, a British chemicals company, when Eric Fawcett accidentally discovered the first industrially practical synthesis. The material’s rise was initially driven by wartime necessity. Plastic production in the US during World War II increased by 300% because of military applications and the need to preserve scarce natural resources. After the war, polyethylene flooded the consumer market.

Polyethylene was produced in abundance during the war years and became an easily found material in the market right after. In the beginning it replaced the wax paper used in bread packaging. Its versatility made it the most widely used plastic in food packaging globally. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is commonly used for milk jugs, yogurt containers, and food storage containers, offering excellent scratch resistance and impact resistance. Low-density variants are used for flexible films, produce bags, and sandwich wraps – materials that dominate the fresh food and meat sections of any grocery store.

PVC: the flexible film that wrapped the meat counter 🔗

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) has a longer and more complex history. Vinyl chloride was discovered in 1835 by French physicist Victor Regnault, and German professor Fritz Klatte developed its industrial manufacturing processes from 1912 onwards. For food packaging, PVC became significant decades later.

PVC’s relevance to meat packaging is particularly direct. PVC has excellent dimensional stability, is oxygen permeable, and acts as an effective barrier to grease and oil, making it an ideal choice for cling wraps and food foils. The oxygen permeability is actually a deliberate advantage in fresh meat packaging – it allows the surface myoglobin in meat to remain oxygenated, preserving the bright red colour that consumers associate with freshness. This is why cling-wrapped meat trays in supermarkets remained the default presentation format for decades.

However, PVC requires a variety of chemicals during production that can harm workers and the environment, and when incinerated, it releases toxic chlorine gas. This has driven the food industry to seek alternatives, though PVC-wrapped polystyrene trays remain common in many markets.

Thermoplastics and laminates: raising the bar for food protection 🔗

By the latter half of the 20th century, single-material plastics were no longer sufficient for the increasingly complex demands of food distribution. The answer came in two forms: thermoplastics and multilayer laminates.

Thermoplastics 🔗

Thermoplastics can be processed and reprocessed using heat, making them recyclable. They can be easily moulded into different shapes, which makes them more ideal for food packaging. The most widely used thermoplastics in food packaging today include low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), PVC, PET, HDPE, and polystyrene. Polypropylene containers are microwave-safe and often used for products requiring reheating, such as frozen meals and microwaveable soups.

Thermoplastics enabled a new generation of packaging formats – from vacuum-sealed bags to modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) trays – that significantly extended the shelf life of perishable products like meat. The ability to form airtight, tamper-evident seals using heat was a direct result of thermoplastic properties that earlier materials simply couldn’t offer.

Laminates and multilayer films 🔗

Laminates represent the most technically sophisticated development in plastic packaging. Rather than relying on a single material, laminates stack multiple layers – each performing a specific function. Multilayer films combine the barrier and other properties of various polymers, with the outermost layer chosen for safety, aesthetics, or printability. They typically comprise two to five layers, but can extend up to seven layers for specialised applications such as meat packaging films.

A typical meat packaging laminate might combine a polyethylene inner layer (for heat sealing and food contact safety), a layer of EVOH or nylon (for oxygen and moisture barrier), and an outer layer of polyester or polypropylene (for structural rigidity and print quality). One such laminated packaging material combines paperboard for rigidity, foil for a light and gas barrier, and plastic as both a barrier and sealant layer – enabling shelf-stable products with significantly less heat stress than canned alternatives.

World War II and the acceleration of plastic packaging 🔗

It would be incomplete to discuss the emergence of plastic packaging without noting the role of wartime industry. Plastic production in the US during World War II increased by 300% because of its military applications and the need to preserve scarce natural resources. Technologies and materials developed under military necessity – from polyethylene films to laminated pouches – rapidly transitioned into civilian food supply chains after 1945.

Post World War Two, one-use materials were introduced into everyday life, such as foil and plastics. Gone were the days of local retailers weighing and hand-wrapping loose items; the introduction of stocked shelves was taking off, and packaging became the store’s silent salesman. The supermarket model demanded standardised, sealed, visually appealing packaging – and plastic delivered all three. The result was an industry transformation that made fresh and processed meat available to consumers far beyond the reach of local butchers.

Environmental consequences and the push for alternatives 🔗

The same properties that made plastic packaging so effective – its durability, resistance to degradation, and low cost – eventually became liabilities. The food packaging industry has drastically changed over the course of human history, and it is still evolving to meet the changing needs of consumers and to combat the environmental problems stemming from plastic waste.

Petroleum-based plastics are cheap, have good tensile properties, and represent effective barriers against oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water vapour. But using them in large quantities results in long-standing environmental pollution, and the depletion of fossil fuels has prompted researchers to develop eco-friendly biodegradable polymers.

In meat packaging specifically, research is now focused on bioplastic alternatives such as polylactic acid (PLA), which has been investigated for packaging fresh red meat, with results showing it can maintain fresh red colour longer than conventional packaging, extending shelf life by up to two additional days. Multilayer biodegradable films are also under active development, combining the functional performance of conventional laminates with a significantly reduced environmental footprint.

Institutions such as the American Chemical Society and peer-reviewed journals in food science continue to track these developments, reflecting how seriously the scientific community is taking the challenge of replacing conventional plastics without compromising food safety or shelf life.

What plastic packaging changed in food – especially meat 🔗

Looking at the full arc from Parkesine in 1862 to modified atmosphere packaging in the 2000s, the impact of plastic on the food industry is measurable and profound. Plastic packaging materials enabled year-round availability of perishable products, reduced spoilage losses in transit, made supermarket self-service possible, and created entirely new food categories – from ready-to-eat meals to vacuum-packed deli meats.

For meat specifically, the shift from butcher’s paper and open counters to sealed plastic trays represented a fundamental change in hygiene standards, shelf life, and consumer confidence. The ability to print nutritional information, use-by dates, and branding directly on packaging also made plastic an instrument of food safety communication – something no previous material could offer at the same scale and cost.

What do you think? As plastic packaging continues to evolve, do you believe bioplastics and multilayer biodegradable films can fully replace conventional plastics in meat packaging without compromising freshness or safety? And considering how deeply plastic became embedded in food retail after World War II, what might drive a similarly rapid industry-wide shift toward sustainable alternatives today?

References

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