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Value and health drive new food and beverage packaging

A depressed economy and consumers' increasing concerns about personal, as well as environmental, health and wellness drive food and beverage packaging innovations.

FAULTLESS PREP. Orca Bay redesigned its frozen seafood packaging to include two varieties of vacuum-packaging steam technology--
FAULTLESS PREP. Orca Bay redesigned its frozen seafood packaging to include two varieties of vacuum-packaging steam technology--

 It is said by optimists in the food and beverage industry that no matter how bad the economy, “people still have to eat.” While that may be true, in the midst of this past year’s economic meltdown, consumers have made distinct changes to the ways in which they source and prepare their meals and in the foods they consume that have had major impacts on food and beverage packaging.

Guiding most of the packaging trends of 2009 and into 2010 are considerations of value and health. In the realm of health, consumers are looking not only for fresh, safe, and nutritious products, but also at items having “healthy,” sustainable packaging. So although tighter budgets are driving consumers to search out the best buy for their money, at the same time, greater concerns for food safety, health and wellness, and environmental sustainability are strongly influencing their food and beverage purchases.

The demise of one recent packaging phenomenon exemplifies consumers’ changing attitudes. According to research conducted by Mintel on the use of pre-measured packaging, the 100-calorie portion packs made popular over the last few years are now falling out of favor with consumers. The reasons for the portion pack’s downturn are threefold, Mintel relates: Consumers are looking for value over convenience in the current economy; 100-calorie packs were a diet fad that has been shown not to work; and the packs use an unsustainably large amount of packaging.

A review of other developments among some of the main packaging-material categories shows how these trends toward value and health are playing out in a range of food and beverage categories.

Flexible packs make healthy meal prep easy

One direct effect of the recession has been a move by consumers away from dining out to eating more meals in the home. Notes Mintel, in a follow up to its “2009 Global Consumer Trends” study, “Eight in 10 Americans say they are cooking at home more now, while a full 52 percent admit to spending less at restaurants this year than last.” This has resulted in greater demand for easy-to-prepare packaged meals, as well as meals prepared by grocers.

One material being reached for by packagers to market their prepared meal solutions are flexible plastics, which offer competitive cost and performance advantages. Among its benefits are a light weight, moisture- and puncture-resistance, and enhanced barrier properties. Flexible packs also offer convenience features like resealability and steam cooking. According to a 2009 study from The Freedonia Group  “Paper versus Plastic in Packaging,” plastic packaging is projected to climb 2.4% per year through 2012, outpacing the growth of paper packs in all markets in which they compete.

Last spring, during a relaunch of its line of frozen fish products, Orca Bay Seafoods, Inc., Renton, WA, availed itself of new flexible-film steam-cooking technology to differentiate its products in the freezer case and to add value for consumers. Says Orca Bay director of sales and marketing Larry Williams, “In today’s economy, seafood is a tough market. It’s viewed as a premium or luxury item. We wanted to make it more mainstream.

 “Consumers are more concerned today about value than ever before. Our biggest challenge was to try to balance value with product price.”

Williams says Orca Bay initially undertook the update of its 12-oz line—two vacuum-packed frozen fish fillets in a secondary, matte-finish flexible pouch—to compete with private-label and other brands. (See story on page 32 regarding the rise in private-label brands.) “But it also gave us the opportunity to re-evaluate the packaging, what we were trying to do, and whether we were meeting the consumer’s requirements for a seafood purchase at the shelf,” he says.

Through focus groups, Orca Bay learned that some of consumers’ biggest concerns related to preparation. Not only were buyers frustrated when front-panel graphics showed deliciously prepared fish but lacked accompanying preparation instructions, but for casual and nonusers of the product, they felt fish was “an expensive item that’s difficult to prepare.”

With the addition of two new steam-packaging technologies, Orca Bay addressed these concerns in a line of 10-oz products launched in March. “Consumers would like to prepare meals on their own, but at the same time, they demand convenience and the reliability of, ‘Yes, I cooked it right,’” says Williams.

A first in the fish industry, Orca Bay’s 10-oz packs of Sockeye Salmon, Keta Salmon, and Mahi Mahi now use the SteamWell® cook-in-steam system from DuPont Teijin Films. The film, a proprietary construction of laminated PET, is supplied by Advance Packaging Technologies. Two other Orca Bay SteamWell-branded packages, for Tilapia and Flounder, use Fresh Wave steam-channel technology from CPT Plastics. The film is a custom-laminated PET and polypropylene structure, with an “exclusive, patented technology in the steam strip area,” explains Jeff Madrzak, CPT national accounts manager.

The type of technology used depends upon where the fish is packaged. At Orca Bay’s Renton facility, the company uses DuPont’s film on a rollstock vacuum-packaging machine; the company’s Asian supplier employs a chamber vacuum system with the CPT solution.

And the differences in the technologies? As Williams explains, the DuPont system comprises two layers of film sealed around the fish fillet. When the product is heated in the microwave, the pressure builds, eventually rupturing the seal on one side of the package through which steam is vented. In contrast, the CPT solution uses micro-pores in the film. Steam vents through the micro-pores in a proprietary Time Release design throughout the cooking process.

To enhance consumer convenience, Orca Bay’s new secondary flexible pouch package design also includes preparation suggestions with each fish variety. The easy-open pouches, with a tear-notch opening, are converted by Inexim Flexible Packaging and are printed in up to eight colors on a gravure press.

Rigid containers fit the bill for family-size appetites

Just as flexible films are gaining ground in a number of food applications, so too are rigid plastic packs, which offer many of the same performance benefits, with the added advantages of recyclability and reusability in many cases. Notes Freedonia’s “Food Containers: Rigid & Flexible” study, which estimates a 4.8% increase in rigid plastic packaging from 2008-2013, “Gains in plastic containers will be attributable to performance advantages over glass, metal, and paperboard alternatives, as well as improved resin and processing technologies.”

In meeting the growing trend of at-home meal preparation—including brown bag lunches—Sara Lee Corp.’s Hillshire Farm brand chose a 1-lb, resealable, reusable GladWare® polypropylene tub for its new family-size offering of Deli Select lunchmeats. The tub, from The Glad Products Co.  was launched in August, just in time for the back-to-school season, in both Ultra Thin and Hearty Slices lunchmeat varieties.

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