Food Marketing & Technology - India June 2019 | Page 44

Packaging
clicks an empty tray onto the sealed
soup tray. Shortly after that, the second
DA-770 lidding system places a snap-
on lid onto the empty click-on tray.
Finally, the trays go through x-ray
inspection (Elprom), are labelled from
below and above (ELS), and placed in
cardboard boxes by robots. of the easy-open peel tab, heats up the
soup, adds the fresh ingredients and
boils it for just three minutes. With
this innovative soup tray, MatBørsen
allows consumers in the Meny
supermarkets to make an individual
choice while offering a high-quality
meal with optimal convenience.
With the new line, the soup is now
prepared in a tumbler, pumped into a
cooling system and packaged at 4 to 6
degrees after approximately one hour.
Furthermore, the soup is sealed under
modified atmosphere by adding CO2
and reducing the residual oxygen level
to below 0.4%. As such, it now has a
shelf life of up to 30 days. Henriksen: “After introducing the
new tray, our production volume
for soups initially decreased, but
this was the result of less food waste
at retail compared to the previous
bulk packs. Now, we are back at our
normal volume and still growing. We
are currently producing four different
soups, where our best-selling product
is our delicious fish soup. We produce
50,000 trays of that soup per month.”
The story continuous at retail
The soup tray is available exclusively
at the Meny supermarket chain in
Norway, which has approximately
200 stores in the country. At the
supermarket counter, the consumer
chooses a soup and asks for any fresh
ingredients that are placed into the
empty click- on tray. This tray with
ingredients is then weighed, provided
with the snap-on lid, clicked onto the
soup tray and labelled with a price
tag, so the consumer can pay at the
cashier. At home, he or she removes
the top film of the soup tray by means
Paper-based trays
that reduce plastic waste
Always searching for new ideas,
MatBørsen also became interested in
the Halopack concept for another of its
ready meal lines. Halopack trays are
based on cardboard, but have a plastic
inner layer that can be separated from
the cardboard for easy waste disposal.
Henriksen: “This idea also started
at the IFFA 2016 exhibition, where
we saw the Halopack trays in the
supermarket section of the SEALPAC
stand. We were immediately drawn
to its exclusive image and branding
opportunities by being able to print the
cardboard all around. In fact, it was
only later that we realized the plastic
reduction compared to the tray we
used before.
With the Halopack tray, we now save
around 8 tons of plastic waste per
year. Overall, by moving from cold
to hot filling and by applying new
packaging formats, we have been
able to significantly increase the shelf
life of our products while reducing
plastic waste by up to 120 tons in
2018. Although we see the demand
for plastic reduction picking up in
Norway, we always have to consider
shelf life before moving to new
materials. Drinving from our facility
in Stokke to the North of the country
is similar to driving from Stokke to
Rome! Therefore, we will always have
to weigh the improved sustainability
against shelf life and cost.”
Space for improvement
When it comes to the company’s plans,
Freddy André Henriksen is very clear:
“With the current growth rate and the
already limited space in our factory,
we need to place a new building
between the current production halls
that connects both of them. By creating
more space, it may also become
possible to pre-package the click-on
tray with fresh ingredients here in the
factory. In any case, we expect our
company to show a steady growth in
the coming years and may well need
some more SEALPAC lines.”
Food Marketing & Technology
44
June 2019