nnovation in packaging for SMEs in the agri-food sector is essential if these companies are to remain competitive in the marketplace and meet consumer expectations. As packaging plays a crucial role in preserving food quality and freshness, marketers must first strive to develop packaging solutions that provide adequate protection for products, thereby reducing the risk of contamination or spoilage. Packaging is also at the heart of product marketing, as a factor of differentiation and competitiveness in a highly competitive market. Finally, packaging is essential to the organisation of logistics flows, optimising space during transport and storage.
Sustainability has also become a key consideration in packaging design. Concerns about environmental impact, and in particular the 'plastic footprint', have led consumers to favour 'greener' options, even if consumer research shows that the need for safety and ease of use still come first.
The negative impacts of plastic packaging, such as ocean pollution, microplastics and litter, cannot be separated from the strong focus on circular packaging. This has led to ambitious targets around circularity at the European level. According to the European Plastics Strategy, 55% of all plastic packaging must be recycled by 2030.  Thus, the food and packaging industries still face some major challenges in the coming years. To grow towards the future image of circularity, plastic packaging must be designed in such a way that it can be recycled in a high-quality manner after use. By taking into account in the packaging design both the necessary functionality of the packaging for the foodstuff and the sortability and recyclability of the packaging, more value is finally recovered from the material at the end of its life. Many small and medium-sized agri-food businesses will not be in a position to meet these challenges due to a lack of knowledge on the subject and a lack of dedicated in-house resources. They will therefore need to be supported and guided in this transition.
Within R-EU-CYCLE, via an interregional value chain analysis, the challenges, bottlenecks and needs of the actors in the plastic food packaging recycling value chain in the regions concerned are identified and potential cooperation and knowledge exchange between the regions are indentified. Subsequently, R-EU-CYCLE will bring together the actors within the value chain and raise awareness about the identified challenges, needs and opportunities to address them. Via this matchmaking, 5 business cases will be defined that will be developed within R-EU-CYCLE. R-EU-CYCLE aims to optimise the sorting and recyclability of plastic food packaging in various multi-actor business cases by aligning the development of plastic food packaging with sorting and recycling actors and equipment and visa versa, without compromising the functionality of the packaging for the food product. The necessary complementary expertise is present among the project partners to successfully implement R-EU-CYCLE. In addition, the broad (inter)national network of the project partners is essential for the success of the project.