World Packaging Organization (WPO, worldpackaging.org) just confirmed its participation in the Save Food, a project initiated in 2010 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a branch of the United Nations (UN), which aims to fight against the world hunger through avoiding food wastage.

The goal of the initiative is to bring together stakeholders from business, politics, research and not-for-profit organizations, thus encouraging constructive dialogue in the search for solutions to curb food loss along the food chain. In practical terms, the central idea of the project is to mobilize stakeholders to help reduce food loss and waste world-wide through partnerships. As part of this process, packaging is fundamental to keep and guarantee the product quality throughout the supply chain until it reaches populations that suffer with hunger.

According to the United Nations, the world’s population will increase by more than 50% by 2050.  Each of those 9 billion people will depend upon safe and nutritious food that is affordable and readily available, every day. “The role that packaging plays in ensuring that these goals are met is indispensable”, highlights Thomas Schneider, President of WPO.

Schneider explains that WPO’s goal is to educate packaging professionals and society, through its members, about the important and invaluable aspects of packaging. “We are advocates for packaging: good packaging, cost-effective packaging, packaging that contributes to creating a more sustainable society.The world cannot do without packaging, so we must educate people everywhere to respect the purpose of packaging and teach them how to incorporate this tool into the process of building an ever more sustainable society.”

WPOand its members from 50 countries are committed to “Better quality of life through better packaging for more people”. As a first initiative, WPO will participate on the Save Food Congress 2014 schedule to May 7^th and 8^th in Düsseldorf (Germany), for the occasion of Interpack 2014.