Plastic Packaging and Food Waste in Latin American Retail

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(TL;DR) A GIZ-commissioned study examines how plastic packaging practices in supermarkets across Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico intersect with food loss and waste (FLW), concluding that material substitution alone cannot solve either crisis: systemic redesign of retail models, supply chains, regulatory frameworks, and consumer engagement must be pursued simultaneously and coherently, since up to 56% of Latin American food losses occur before packaging even becomes relevant, and most plastic use in retail is driven by marketing inertia rather than genuine conservation need.

Context

Plastic packaging and food loss and waste (FLW) represent two deeply interconnected sustainability challenges that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Globally, an estimated 1,052 million tonnes of food were wasted in 2022, equivalent to approximately 132 kg per person per year, with the retail sector responsible for 13% of this total. Simultaneously, plastic waste from food packaging is overwhelming waste collection and recycling systems, particularly in emerging economies. Latin America has been selected as the focal region because Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico combine rapidly expanding supermarket sectors, evolving regulatory frameworks, and growing consumer awareness, making them exemplary test cases for integrated solutions applicable to LMICs worldwide, including in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The grocery retail sector in Brazil was valued at USD 107 billion in 2020 (approximately 7.5% of GDP), while Mexico’s grocery retail was valued at USD 100 billion in 2023. Both markets are anchored by multinational chains such as Walmart and Carrefour, which set global packaging standards. Colombia’s supermarket industry is smaller but growing rapidly. In all three countries, the supermarket model has transformed how food is packaged, sold, and discarded, amplifying both plastic waste volumes and visibility.

Intervention Overview

The publication was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUKN) through GIZ, as part of the Global Sector Project supporting the implementation of the Marine Debris Framework. Its central objective is to answer a practical policy question: How can scalable, sustainable solutions reduce plastic packaging in the retail sector without increasing food waste?

The study is structured in three interconnected parts. Part I establishes the analytical foundations, examining the dynamics between packaging, FLW, and retail systems. Part II explores low-plastic solutions, including material innovations, systemic redesign, and reuse models. Part III presents policy recommendations and a forward-looking agenda for retailers and governments. The study combines an extensive literature review with ten semi-structured interviews conducted with key stakeholders in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, including packaging manufacturers, retailers, food industry associations, plastic industry associations, and NGOs.

Evidence: What Worked

The evidence base reveals that systemic approaches consistently outperform isolated solutions. When retailers redesign business models rather than simply substitute materials, measurable reductions in both packaging waste and FLW occur simultaneously. The UK’s Courtauld Commitment 2, coordinated by WRAP with 53 key actors, achieved a 10% reduction in the carbon impact of grocery packaging, a 3.7% reduction in household food waste, and a 7.4% reduction in supply chain food waste, accomplished through package redesign, clearer labeling, portion optimization, and improved logistics.

Several case studies from the region demonstrate concrete results. Coca-Cola’s Universal Returnable PET Bottle, scaled across Brazil and Mexico, enables up to approximately 25 reuse cycles per bottle, reducing plastic demand by 90% compared to single-use PET. Algramo’s smart refill dispensers in Chilean supermarkets, combined with RFID-enabled reusable containers, reduce single-use packaging for household and food products while allowing consumers to pay only for product content. The edible coating Apeel, derived from plant-based materials and approved by the FDA, extends the shelf life of fresh produce two to three times, with life cycle analyses (LCA) showing carbon footprint reductions of 18% to 80% depending on the product, while eliminating the need for plastic wraps entirely.

Material design innovations have also delivered documented outcomes. Driscoll’s paper clamshell containers for berries, now scaled commercially in European markets, achieve a 94% reduction in plastic use per unit compared to conventional plastic equivalents. Nestlé’s removal of plastic tamper seals from its Pure Life water bottles in Egypt eliminated nearly 240 tonnes of plastic in the first 18 months of implementation. Adjusting packaging size to household needs can reduce food waste by up to 70%, though this can increase packaging waste due to higher purchase frequency, underscoring the need for coordinated interventions.

Evidence: What Did Not Work

Material substitution strategies, including compostable packaging and bio-based plastics, have consistently fallen short of expectations when deployed without supporting waste management infrastructure. Compostable materials are only effective when industrial composting infrastructure exists. Without it, they risk ending up in landfills where they produce methane under anaerobic conditions, or contaminating plastic recycling streams. This infrastructure is largely absent across Latin American cities.

Bio-based and biodegradable plastics present a similarly complex picture. LCA analyses show that some bio-based plastics derived from food crops can have a greater overall environmental impact than conventional plastics due to land-use change, fertilizer application, and water consumption. The claim that biodegradable plastics reduce food waste by enabling joint disposal with organic waste remains largely theoretical in regions without adequate composting facilities.

Policy fragmentation has also undermined effectiveness. Regulations on packaging waste and food waste are often developed in isolation across ministries, leading to unintended consequences. For example, banning certain packaging formats without improving cold chains can increase food spoilage. Single-use plastic restrictions in Mexico have largely been implemented at the sub-national level (Mexico City, Oaxaca), while federal policy remains limited, producing inconsistent market signals for retailers.

Reuse systems can also be counterproductive if the reverse logistics are inefficient or if containers are lost before reaching the minimum number of reuse cycles needed to offset their production footprint. A systematic analysis is required before deploying reuse models in each specific context.

Lessons Learned

The central lesson emerging from this study is structural: packaging must be understood as one component within a larger food system, not a standalone environmental problem. Approximately 56% of food losses in Latin America occur upstream, before the retail stage, during harvesting, handling, and transport, where packaging has little to no relevance. This means that additional packaging cannot compensate for fundamental supply chain weaknesses.

Retail practices themselves generate demand for excessive packaging. Overly strict aesthetic standards cause edible but imperfect products to be discarded before reaching shelves. Single-portion sachets targeting low-income consumers generate virtually unrecyclable plastic waste while creating an affordability paradox. The root cause is not consumer behavior alone, but the structural inertia of a retail model built around single-use formats and marketing-driven packaging decisions.

Short food supply chains (SFSC) and community-supported agriculture models offer compelling upstream alternatives. The Kecipir platform in Indonesia, which connects peri-urban farmers directly to consumers in Jakarta via a harvest-on-demand logistics model, has prevented 132 tonnes of food waste annually and eliminated over 6 tonnes of single-use plastic and polystyrene packaging since its launch. While operating in a different context, the model illustrates the potential of digitally enabled supply chain shortening applicable to Latin American urban contexts.

Implications for Policy and Programming

Policymakers should prioritize regulatory coherence over isolated bans. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) remains the most effective instrument to internalize packaging externalities: well-designed EPR systems with modulated fees reward low-impact packaging formats and penalize single-use or non-recyclable materials. Colombia’s Resolution 1407/2018 is a model worth replicating, as it links material-specific recovery targets to informal waste picker cooperatives, integrating social inclusion objectives into packaging policy.

Regulations on food waste and packaging must be harmonized across agriculture, environment, health, and trade ministries to avoid shifting burdens along the supply chain. Regional platforms such as the Pacific Alliance, MERCOSUR, and the UNEP Latin America and Caribbean Circular Economy Coalition offer pathways to align definitions, recyclability standards, labeling norms, and food-contact safety rules, enabling solutions to scale across borders without facing fragmented compliance requirements.

Governments should use procurement policy as a lever. Green public procurement specifying zero-waste or reusable packaging targets in public food service institutions creates demand signals that can catalyze broader market transformation. Economic instruments such as taxes on virgin plastic, incentives for reverse logistics infrastructure, and discounts for reuse adoption must be calibrated to Latin America’s market structure, where informal economies and micro-enterprises are dominant actors.

Potential for Scaling and Transferability

Several interventions demonstrate clear scaling potential. Coca-Cola’s Universal Returnable Bottle model, operational at scale in Brazil and Mexico, is directly replicable across Latin America and in other LMICs with sufficient retail density and beverage market penetration. The model functions without formal deposit-return legislation, relying instead on consumer incentives and retailer integration.

Algramo’s refill station model has already expressed interest in expanding to Mexico, and its RFID-based tracking and pricing system could be integrated with retailer loyalty applications, lowering the consumer behavior change barrier. Enabling conditions include stable retail floor space, closed-loop cleaning logistics, and consumer communication on hygiene. The Apeel edible coating solution is expanding operations in Africa, Central America, and South America, with further scale contingent on supply chain integration and regulatory recognition in new markets.

The Kecipir digital harvest-on-demand model, though operating as a startup, demonstrates transferability to Latin American peri-urban contexts where smallholder agriculture and urban demand are in proximity. However, scaling community-based and startup models requires sustained public support in the form of land access, storage infrastructure, and market linkages, which many municipalities in the region are not yet equipped to provide.

Methodological Notes

This publication is not a primary impact evaluation but an evidence synthesis and analytical review. The methodology combines a comprehensive review of academic literature, international reports, and policy documents, with ten semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with key stakeholders in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, covering packaging manufacturers, retailers, food industry associations, plastic industry associations, and one international NGO.

The study explicitly acknowledges that disaggregated data on FLW and packaging use in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia are scarce, particularly in informal markets. This limits the precision of quantitative comparisons and reinforces the study’s orientation toward systems-level recommendations rather than product-level prescriptions. LCA tools, while referenced throughout, are noted as insufficiently adapted to LMIC contexts and should be extended to include environmental leakage, end-of-life pathways, and food system behavioral dynamics.

Stakeholder Perspectives

Stakeholder interviews revealed that aesthetic standards imposed by retailers and buyers are a significant but underacknowledged driver of pre-retail food waste. Industry representatives noted that visual appeal and brand image often override functionality in packaging decisions, particularly for non-perishables, leading to unnecessary material use without demonstrable waste reduction benefits.

NGO respondents highlighted the structural vulnerability of informal waste pickers, who play a critical role in plastic collection and recycling across Latin America but are excluded from the design of packaging systems. The study recommends their meaningful participation in packaging design workshops to ensure that recovery systems function in practice rather than only in theory. Community perspectives also underscore that low-income consumers benefit from bulk and refill models when pricing is made genuinely competitive, as Algramo’s experience in Chile demonstrates.

Key Data Points and Indicators

Indicator Value Source
Global food wasted in 2022 1,052 million tonnes (132 kg/person/year) UNEP 2024
Retail sector share of global food waste 13% (131 million tonnes) UNEP 2024
Food losses upstream of retail in Latin America ~56% of total food losses UNEP 2022
Mexico: share of food produced that is lost or wasted More than 35% (~USD 25 billion/year) Harvard Law School 2024
Brazil: global ocean plastic pollution rank 8th worldwide Fonseca 2024
Coca-Cola Universal PET bottle: reuse cycles ~25 cycles per bottle Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2021
Plastic demand reduction vs. single-use PET Up to 90%
Driscoll’s paper containers: plastic reduction 94% per unit Driscoll’s
Nestlé Egypt: plastic eliminated in 18 months ~240 tonnes Mamdouh 2024
Kecipir: annual food waste avoided 132 tonnes Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2020
Courtauld Commitment 2 (UK): supply chain food waste reduction 7.4% WRAP 2023
Apeel carbon footprint reduction (LCA) 18% to 80% depending on product

 

Further Resources and Links

Implementing Organizations

Commissioning Ministry

  • German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUKN): bmuv.de

Knowledge and Standards Partners

Case Study Organizations

Regional Policy Platforms

Report Citation

Shesh, Tarun, Rafaela Craizer, Mohamed Kotaish, and Federica del Llano. Evaluación del rol de los envases plásticos en la reducción del desperdicio de alimentos en el sector minorista: Explorando alternativas sostenibles a los envases plásticos en el contexto de Brasil, Colombia y México. BlackForest Solutions, commissioned by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUKN). Bonn: GIZ, 2025.

Disclaimer: The author did not participate in this evaluation. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and cannot be attributed to any affiliated organizations. Portions of the text and images were supported by artificial intelligence.