Decision support system for assessing quality and consumer acceptance of active biocomposite based food packaging

Food wastage contributes to approximately 8% of global greenhouse emissions, posing a major sustainability challenge with significant losses in both the pre-retail and household sectors. The drawbacks of traditional preservation methods have sparked interest in active sustainable packaging. Active sustainable packaging has the ability to enhance the shelf life of food products and reduce environmental impacts, which is crucial for consumer acceptance and market penetration. The consumer acceptability and quality of packaged food in sustainable active packaging with time have been assessed using sensory criteria and multicriteria decision-making techniques. Sensory evaluation is done with consumers, and assessment is shown as a spider graph based on six sensory criteria. The effect of time and type of packaging on consumer preference based on individual sensory criteria has been assessed using the 3D surface graph. Relative weightage of sensory criteria such as appearance, colour, texture, touch, aroma, and overall has been obtained by implementing the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The AHP model results reveal that active packaging-based alternatives (A1D7, A2D15, A3D30) are the most acceptable packaging alternatives with time compared to synthetic and open packaging based on selected sensory criteria. Moreover, the technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) method is implemented to find the ranking of all nine packaging alternatives. The ranking of the packaging alternatives based on sensory criteria also supports the ranking obtained from the AHP analysis. This study provides crucial insights for food manufacturers to enhance packaging strategies, optimizing product appeal and consumer satisfaction.