Edible, Water-Soluble Wrapping: Is This the Food Packaging of the Future?
Food packaging contributes to a lot of the waste in our homes, and it’s something most of us just accept. Plastic wrappers for cereal, energy bars, deli meats, and instant coffee all find themselves in the garbage at a rate as high as our consumption. Monosol is aiming to change that by offering edible, water-soluble wrapping. Could this be the food packaging of the future?
Monosol is something in-between the edible wrapper we get wrapped around a Coolhaus sammie — our favorite ice cream spot in Austin — and the soluble detergent pacs you’ve likely used in your dishwasher. In fact, the company behind Monosol produces those popular dishwasher tabs and they’re hoping the dissolvable wrapping has an even bigger impact in the food industry.
The new packaging technology — composed of FDA-approved edible polymers that have an undetectable taste and smell — is ideal for items we dissolve in water anyway. Monosol is expected to hit the market soon, so it may not be long before we start to see the wrapping in our grocery store in products like hot chocolate, instant coffee, oatmeal, pasta, and more.
We’re curious to see if things hold up as claimed and how the general public reacts to the idea of eating dissolved polymers in their cup or cereal bowl. If seen favorably, Monosol could very well revolutionize the way we consume food and be a boon for waste reduction in our homes.
Would you be willing to eat or drink a product wrapped in Monosol?
– Post contributed by Chris Perez of Apartment Therapy
Related: America’s First Packaging-Free Grocery Store
(Images: Chris Perez)