Extending Freshness and Tackling the Challenges of Produce Shelf Life
Packaging plays a vital role in today’s fast-paced business landscape, ensuring product protection, preservation, and presentation. As the packaging industry continues to grow and adapt to changing market demands, it’s crucial for companies to stay ahead and offer exceptional packaging solutions. To provide insights into this dynamic landscape, we have developed Packaging Talks – a series of conversational panels with Crawford’s packaging experts. Whether you’re a business owner, a packaging professional, or simply curious, our panels aim to offer valuable information and inspiration.
In this installment of our Packaging Talks, we chat with Brandon Taggart, Crawford’s Project Manager and Packaging Specialist, about extending freshness and tackling the challenges of fresh produce shelf life.
What makes it so difficult to extend the shelf life of fresh produce?
Extending produce freshness is never straightforward. Key hurdles include regulating respiration rates, maintaining proper temperature and humidity, preventing microbial growth, and reducing handling damage. Packaging choice also plays a critical role. Each crop has its own sensitivities—for instance, mini cucumbers bagged immediately after harvest may start sweating if not cooled quickly. Rapid pre-cooling is vital to slow respiration and preserve quality.
Why is shelf-life extension so important for both retailers and consumers?
The biggest driver is reducing food waste. In Canada, nearly 45% of discarded food is fruits and vegetables—representing not only lost revenue but also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Packaging innovations can help address this, though there’s no universal fix since every type of produce behaves differently. One proven solution is Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) liner bags, which extend shelf life by slowing respiration and controlling condensation inside bulk packaging.
Can you share more about how these packaging technologies actually work?
Absolutely. Because different produce requires different conditions, we’ve developed a broad portfolio of packaging options, including polybags, flow wrap films, lidding films, and pallet covers made with high-barrier materials. Many of these can be laser-perforated to fine-tune oxygen and humidity exchange. This creates an optimal microclimate that reduces weight loss while avoiding excess moisture buildup. The result is produce that stays fresh longer—adding valuable days of shelf life. And innovation in this space continues to evolve.
Do you have real-world examples where these solutions made a noticeable difference?
Yes—we ran a week-long trial comparing standard LDPE polybags with our GrowPack Life Extension Bags for mini cucumbers. Under typical storage and transport conditions, cucumbers in standard bags showed significant moisture buildup, decay, and bacterial growth. In contrast, those stored in GrowPack bags remained dry, crisp, and fresh, clearly demonstrating the impact of shelf-life technology in real distribution environments. Let me show you a picture:
Looking ahead, what trends are shaping the future of produce packaging?
We’re seeing strong demand for locally grown greenhouse berries. These are typically packed in PET clamshells, which don’t provide much protection against rapid spoilage. By shifting to packaging with lidding films that create a controlled environment, growers can extend shelf life, reduce waste, and deliver fresher local berries to consumers. This is an exciting area where packaging innovation can unlock big opportunities.