People, today, do not want a lot of potentially harmful preservatives added to their grocery items.  They do, however, want foods that will remain edible long enough to be fully enjoyed.  Fruits and vegetables, necessary staples of the human diet, have been the biggest problems when it comes to food preservation.  While vacuum sealing technology has elongated the shelf life of meat products, and many snack foods now come in flexible packaging designed to stave off spoilage, fruits and vegetables cannot be treated in the same manner.

Or can they?

New reports indicate that food product packaging has come a long way, and may even be able to prolong the shelf life of apples, oranges, and other such fruits.  Not only will the packaging ensure that your fruits last the duration of time between grocery shopping trips, the packaging company making these announcements has suggested that it will be highly eco-friendly, made entirely of what they are calling ‘plant-based bioplastics’.

Of course, if this proves as effective as the company suggests it will, it could completely change the landscape so familiar to packaging manufacturers today.  Not only can it keep your fruits and vegetables fresh longer, the material could greatly reduce the amount of waste created on earth.

The eco-friendly plastic, says the manufacturer, provides a better oxygen barrier, thereby greatly slowing the breakdown of the fruits and vegetables.  They are planning to take this a step further however, having proposed a color-changing possibility with these “green” food pouches, which would cause them to change in hue when the food has soured, staled, or rotted beyond what is safe for human consumption.  This, obviously, could be a huge discovery for the food industry, and this plastic could, in the not-so-distant future, be the material used to create your stand up pouches and other food bags.