It all starts with food. Food is the foundation for health, education, economic growth, opportunities and social prosperity – and that’s why food systems1 are at the heart of our sustainability agenda.
The bigger picture
Despite sustained improvement in recent years in the overall state of food security, approximately 2.7 billion people are struggling today to access a healthy diet2 and, with the global population continuing to grow, a 60% rise in food demand is expected by 2050.3
According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), food security only exists when people have full access – economically, socially and physically – to safe and nutritious food to meet their nutritional needs and food preferences4.
Achieving affordable and healthy diets for people everywhere requires coordinated action across the entire agrifood sector, so that the complex and interconnected challenges facing the value chain can be addressed effectively for the long term, while also paving the way for a system that enables thriving communities and a prosperous society.
Food systems are responsible for more than one third of global GHG emissions5 so there is a tension between the demand for increased food production and the environmental impact associated with it.
This requires rethinking food systems to enable greater resilience across each part of their critical infrastructure, ensuring that society’s ability to feed a growing and changing global population does not rely solely on increased food production or come at the cost of unsustainable pressure on natural resources.
This requires a system-level transformation that goes beyond siloed approaches and helps shape a resilient food system: one that enables a more efficient connection between food producers, consumers and the wider society and that responds to the critical need to lower energy use, cut emissions and improve efficiency across the value chain – without compromising on food safety, access or affordability.
Material topics
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| Food access | Food production | Food loss and waste | Consumer health & safety |
Our role
As an advanced manufacturer of food processing and packaging systems, we are part of the essential, critical infrastructure that supports resilient food systems. This is the space between agricultural production and consumption, where ingredients are transformed into food products, processed, packaged and prepared for distribution. This is the critical middle of the value chain.
By working with stakeholders across our value chain, we can build modern systems for food production and packaging that enhance food security, increase affordable access, and improve livelihoods and economies for generations to come.
For Tetra Pak, shaping more resilient food systems means connecting what we have long done with what the future increasingly demands, taking a whole-system perspective to drive productivity and reinforce collaborative practices across the value chain and beyond. This translates into an integrated and coordinated approach to strengthen food security, scale innovation – enabling reliable food manufacturing and advancing high-performing packaging – build new skills and capabilities, and promote a more responsible and efficient use of natural resources.
We help strengthen food security by increasing safe access to food ensuring continuity, extending shelf life and reducing food loss and waste across the value chain.
Through our processing and packaging solutions, we help food reach more people, more safely and efficiently, even in the face of disruption.
We help food producers improve efficiency, productivity and affordability through advanced manufacturing, innovative packaging and by building skills and capabilities.
By innovating, adapting and investing in the technologies and infrastructure of the future, we help strengthen competitiveness while meeting evolving consumer and market needs.
We help reduce environmental impacts across the value chain, while adapting to changing climate patterns, resource constraints and evolving consumer expectations.
By actively supporting responsible sourcing practices, an efficient use of materials, simpler material structures and design for recycling, we identify opportunities for continued improvement.
Our progress
1 The term ‘food systems’ refers to all the elements and activities related to producing and consuming food, and their effects, including economic, health, and environmental outcomes, 2023. Source: OECD, https://www.oecd.org/food-systems.
2 FAO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026
3 Renovation and reinvention are key to saving our food system, 2024. Source: World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/06/renovation-reinvention-food/.
4 FAO, An Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security
5 2022, source: FAO https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/121cc613-3d0f-431c-b083-cc2031dd8826/content.
6 2023, source: PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37747649/.
7 2024, source: World Resources Institute, https://www.wri.org/insights/how-much-food-does-the-world-waste.
8 Sustainable food systems mean growing, producing, processing, packaging, distributing and consuming food without negatively impacting the planet. Retrieved from OECD. (2019). Accelerating Climate Action. Source: OECD iLibrary.