But there's basically NO WAY to get away from plastics
I agree that plastics are here to stay for many reasons, but the reasons you list above aren't them. We had frozen foods before we had plastic packaging. Fresh foods need not be in plastic (they even have plastic-like vegetable bags made from cellulose these days, but there is nothing wrong with brown paper bags), baked goods don't require plastic (light cardboard with or without a wax coating works fine), and as you point out, rice (and anything similar) can be sold in burlap bags, no plastic required. You can sell liquids in metal cans or glass bottles.
Shelf lives will be shorter (sometimes a lot shorter, sometimes only minimally), the product will probably not be as attractive while sitting on the shelf (no little plastic window means I can't see the donuts in the box I am buying, the horror), transportation costs may increase (glass is heavy), but the reasons "we can't" are all because "we do business a little differently now" and not because some fundamental property of plastic makes it so. If you're over, say, 40, it is not hard to remember a world not dominated by single use plastics.