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Paper-based tray for food

REWE Group, one of the biggest retailers in Austria, is offering the premium cheeses in its organic brand Ja! Natürlich on patented paper trays that reduce the use of plastic by 70%.

Paper-based material scores sustainability points.
Paper-based material scores sustainability points.

Mondi Fibre Packaging is the developer and supplier of the new perFORMing line of tray material, which is shipped as rollstock to REWE’s dairy producer Salzburgmilch. There the material is fed into a highly automated packaging line from GEA that thermoforms the trays 8-up, robotically loads the slices of cheese with Weber pickers, evacuates ambient air, backflushes the tray with CO2, and applies a clear lidding material.

The Austrian retail stores BILLA, MERKUR, ADEG, and Sutterlüty—all part of REWE Group-- are all offering the organic cheese slices on these new paper trays. In Austria, these can be recycled as waste paper because they’re made of 80% virgin fiber and only 20% plastic. The new packaging reduces plastic consumption by 70% and carbon footprint by around two-thirds compared with the previous solution,according to Mondi.

The natural brown paper of the new cheese packaging is produced by Mondi Frantschach, Carinthia, predominantly from Austrian wood. Rolls of paper then go to Mondi Styria, about 30 miles away. Here the paper is given an extrusion coating of EVOH. Once the coating is applied, the total weight of the paper is 290 gsm.

When the coated paper reaches Salzburgmilch, it’s fed into a GEA PowerPak form/fill/seal system. It includes three Weber robots that load the cheese into the thermoforms. Clear lidding material is heat-sealed over the cheese, but details on what that film is were not available. Once the individual packs have been cut from the web, they’re packed into corrugated secondary packaging.

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