Selection of plant materials and their maturity stages suitable for food packing and serving

People around the world, including Sri Lankans, are frequently using plant materials as an age-old practice to pack and serve foods. This study aimed to select the best materials and their correct maturity stages with favourable properties for eco-friendly food packaging. Information relevant to locally utilized plant materials was collected from 75 people from plant-related sectors, including farmers, Ayurvedic practitioners, agriculture instructors and the undergraduates of the Botany study field, through a descriptive questionnaire. Further, from the list of plant materials corroborated by the respondents, twelve materials, namely, leave of lotus, tropical almond, teak, palmyrah, coconut, portia, jack, banyan as well as leaves and sheath of banana, and arecanut were selected and they were tested for load-bearing ability, surface area, thickness, storage stability and folding ability. The results revealed that the leaves and sheath of banana, leaves of palmyrah and the sheath of arecanut had significantly better qualities for developing food packaging materials. Further, the mature stage of banana and tender stage of palmyrah leaves demonstrated significantly (p<0.05) higher load-bearing capacity (LBC) (1.88 ± 0.08N, 30.90 ± 1.19 N), tear resistance (1.90 ± 0.09 N, 4.36 ± 0.21 N) and fibre content (30.38 ± 1.02%, 46.06 ± 1.11%) against other sources in developing food packaging materials.