Food banks receive fresh produce donated by grocery distributors and stores. The donated produce is too close to the end of its consumable shelf life to sell.  Packaging certain produce items extends the shelf life allowing distribution to food bank clients. For example, lettuce that would go bad in 3 days is packaged to allow consumption in up to 15 days.

At the request of the Montgomery County Food Bank, Conroe, Texas, Dow Chemical Company developed a resin for making packaging film to allow produce shelf life extension.

General Packaging Equipment Co. developed the GreenOn™ Produce Wrapper to allow a degree of automation in packaging the produce items. The machine automatically makes a bag from continuous roll stock each time produce is manually loaded. All bags are the same width, and the machine senses the product length to automatically determine the required package length. Operator adjustments are not required in changing from one product to another.