Packaging

The packaging sector is always looking for ways to help clients reduce labor. This video shows a semi-automatic spring onion packaging line in action.

Packaging manufacturers Macpac report that in the coming weeks they will be launching a new on-line ‘shopping’ website. It will provide a one-stop shop for box quantities of selected packaging on demand in key sectors A spokesperson for the manufacturer said ‘We’ve been successfully offering our…

Consumers have been paying even more attention to food safety since the outbreak of Covid-19. At the same time, there is also a growing demand for sliced fruits and vegetables. The cutting up of fruits and vegetables is an important step in the processing of fruits and vegetables. This step is not just…

In India the lockdown came suddenly back in March and affected a lot of businesses especially those involved in the grape export as it was just 2/3 way through.AVI Global Plast produce packaging for, amongst others, the grape sector but the company seems to have coped very well in a difficult…

The Re-fruiter tray from Fonkels has been nominated for the European Carton Excellence Award 2020. The Re-fruiter tray is a fully cardboard packaging, made from 100% recycled material, with unique properties. The jury found the tray to be very distinctive in terms of shape, function and durability: hence…

Harpak-ULMA today announced the official launch of its innovative PaperSeal packaging technology as part of the company’s initiative to fundamentally rethink packaging systems to promote green packaging alternatives across the food industry. Image: Business Wire Public concerns, regulatory actions, and powerful…

In India the lockdown came suddenly back in March and affected a lot of businesses especially those involved in the grape export as it was just 2/3 way through.AVI Global Plast produce packaging for, amongst others, the grape sector but the company seems to have coped very well in a difficult…

Church Bros. Farms is expanding its value-added offerings to the retail segment with the introduction of five new items under the Green Giant Fresh brand: sweet baby broccoli, sweet baby cauliflower, spaghetti squash, butternut squash and sweet potato.

The Sweet Baby vegetable line includes sweet baby broccoli in an eight-ounce bag and sweet baby cauliflower in a 10-ounce bag.  Both vegetables are washed and ready to use with a 16-day shelf life.  

Sweet baby broccoli is sweet and tender from floret to stem and 100 percent edible, reducing food waste and kitchen prep time. Sweet baby cauliflower is a new sweeter variety of cauliflower with tender green stems that become brighter when cooked.

“These new items give retailers the opportunity to build a Sweet Baby category. Their uniform stand up pouches look great side by side on the shelf,” said Rick Russo senior vice president of sales and marketing.

The Cubed and Crumbled veggie line includes a range of hearty vegetables that deliver nutrition as well as flavor and convenience.  The Cubed items include sweet potatoes, butternut squash and spaghetti squash in 16-ounce bags. Accompanying the original Cauliflower Crumbles and Cauliflower Crumbles Fried Rice, the Cubed offerings will further satisfy consumers’ needs for convenient cuts of gourmet, nutritious veggies.

Fruit is a naturally nutritious food. Fruit has many of the vitamins that humans need to stay alive and healthy. China is the largest fruit producer in the world in terms of surface area devoted to fruit plantation, and the third-largest in terms of production volume. However, fruit is seasonal and…

Before the Corona situation, the social discussion on sustainable packaging solutions and the abandonment of plastic dominated events in the food industry. Due to the sudden pandemic and its corresponding impact on the fruit and vegetable trade, the topic now seems to have receded into the background.…

The Dutch consumer program, Radar, recently took a closer look at the fresh pack concept. Are these packs really so tasty and convenient? Isn’t it much cheaper to buy all the products separately at the supermarket? To find out, Radar called on Dutch food blogger, Brenda Hoff. She compared pumpkin soup and…

Bye bye plastic: At REWE and PENNY, more and more fruits and vegetables are offered unpackaged. But completely dispensing with packaging is not always sensible, as a long-term test has shown. Despite the ongoing corona crisis and its severe impact on supermarkets, supply chains and agriculture, REWE is…

People often send, for example, broccoli from the Netherlands to Spain. Then they scoop a decent amount of ice over its crate. That's to keep the broccoli in optimal condition. That, however, has a drawback. Things become a mess on arrival. There are puddles of water under all the pallets. Hygiene is…

Controlled-environment produce packaging has become a new market focus for Multivac Inc., a German equipment manufacturer with U.S. headquarters in Kansas City, MO.

Multivac sells packaging equipment and materials to create the ideal produce packages. It specializes in food packaging and in recent years, Cem Yildirim, national sales manager for produce, has aggressively built a presence in the fruit and vegetable market segment.

The firm’s German-engineered technology applies a variety of options in forming and sealing equipment to create highly advanced modified atmosphere consumer packages.

Yildirim cites many advantages for controlled environment agriculture — "CEA" — to use Multivac technology. These operations produce and sell product 12 months a year through hot houses, hydroponics, and aquaponics.

Yildirim notes that even in the idyllic environment of some California growing areas, it is generally rare for a farm to produce and pack every day of the year. “When you’re harvesting and packing every day, it’s more like a dairy operation. The product just keeps coming and your packaging operation must be able to keep up. Every day there is more to harvest.”

Thus, it becomes highly cost-effective to invest in top-level, efficient packaging technology.

Stemilt has reimagined a long-time grab-and-go produce pack to provide retailers with an eco-friendly way to easily display bulk apples and pears. Available this fall, the new paper Farm + Famous pack features a positive message that “All Farmers are Famous,” is 100 percent recyclable, and carries How2Recycle labeling.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many changes to the grocery shopping environment,” said Brianna Shales, Stemilt’s senior marketing manager. “Huge increases in online shopping, fewer and faster in-store shopping trips, bigger basket sizes, and sales growth in the produce department as more people cook at home. With all of this in mind, we set out to create a sustainable package to help sell bulk — or random-weight — fruit in a way that is easy for retailers to merchandise and convenient for shoppers to grab and get on their way. The Farm + Famous paper tote checks all the boxes for selling bulk apples and pears in this uncertain environment.”

Each Farm + Famous tote bag will be filled with bulk fruit that has a PLU sticker on it for cashiers to ring-up at the register. The bag holds around four pounds of fruit and eight bags are packed in a Euro footprint box with a snap-on lid. Unlike traditional tote bags that are filled by produce department staff or by the shopper, the Farm + Famous tote eliminates additional handling and is ready to display and purchase as soon as it is set up on the produce floor.

When it comes to secondary packaging and transport packaging, people nowadays often think of hinged crates as used in the common pool systems. Nevertheless even rigid fruit and vegetable crates still have a right to exist, says Gerold Wilms from bekuplast. "This type of crate has been around for 25…

Termotécnica has reinvented itself by launching the Safe Pack Antiviral and Antibacterial. Patented and unique in the market, Safe Pack uses nanotechnology to reduce the time and quantity of viral and bacterial agents in the EPS packaging produced by the company. “I believe that it’s in a crisis that the…

The burgeoning online delivery channel is leaving a considerable impact on packaging styles and materials, marketers say.

Safety is a priority, said Cindy Blish, brand and communications manager with Shelton, Conn.-based Inline Plastics Corp.

“Consumers demand that their online delivery of food is not tampered with, which is why tamper evident packaging has such a great fit for the delivery market,” she said. 

“Tamper-evident packaging” will continue to evolve to meet the burgeoning needs of the market, including developing new styles which not only provide safe and protected transportation of the products, but also provide enough style to be attractively served straight from the container, Blish said.

That’s a key point, said Jeff Brandenburg, president and primary consultant for the Greenfield, Mass.-based JSB Group LLC and QFresh Lab in Salinas, Calif.

“We get back to how do you protect it,” he said. 

There are a number of key questions that come to the fore, where packaging for online delivery models are concerned, Brandenburg said.

“Is that online delivery going to be refrigerated? How do you maintain temperatures? If you have fresh and stable side by side, how do you manage that from a shipping standpoint? Is it Amazon Fresh, USPS, FedEx?” he said. 

Is there still space at wholesalers for fruit and vegetable packaging? Not that they don't need it at all, but stock sometimes takes up quite a lot of space. Couldn't another method of stock control be cheaper and more effective? And what about packaging that can be used several times, like plastic…

Hazel Technologies Inc. announced the launch of Hazel® CA, a new technology designed for growers and packers of apples to protect quality in cold storage following harvest. The technology will be available to apple packers this coming season, following positive initial results last season. Fresh apples…

While the vast array of shelf life extension technology for fresh cut produce has grown exponentially over the last decade, strawberries had been absent from the list until recently. This highly popular and beloved berry had eluded efforts to extend its shelf life after cutting. Through focused research…

A compostable shrink-wrap developed in South Australia for cucumbers has been adapted to magazine film. Its Adelaide manufacturer, BioBag World Australia, created the film last year with a number of supermarket chains now using the product for fruit and vegetables. The bio-wrap was first used on…

Veg-Fresh Farms, Corona, Calif., is using packaging to fight pathogens — and not just as a barrier during transport and on retail shelves.

The company is using Smart Plastic Technologies to add anti-microbial properties to the film packaging itself. The film is being used for conventional and organic Brussels sprouts packages, with plans to use Smart Plastic with clamshells, lidding film and more, according to a news release.

Smart Plastic Technologies have an array of plastic additives that are designed to address a number of specific issues, including food safety. They are added in the production of the films in “very small percentages,” along with other standard ingredients, according to the release, and are effective against salmonella, listeria, E. coli and numerous other organisms, promising a 99.9% reduction in bacteria.

Bob Wright, chief operations officer at Veg-Fresh Farms, said the company has been in contact with Smart Plastic Technologies for a few years.

“We have been closely following their independent testing trials and have been thoroughly impressed with the technology they provide,” Wright said in the release. “It is a natural fit to incorporate this technology into our packaging. Foodborne illness is one of the top threats to this industry, and we are committed to taking advantage of new technology to keep our customer’s food as fresh, safe and healthy as possible.”

Smart Plastic additives include:

EarthFresh announced their new complete product line of organic and conventional potatoes packed in 100% compostable paper bags. Available in all pack sizes, including baby potatoes in 1 lb and 1.5 lb bags and A and B size potatoes in 3 lb, 5 lb and 10 lb compostable paper bags. EarthFresh’s compostable…

To meet demands of growers across the market to reduce labor, enable faster packaging speeds and lower maintenance costs when wrapping iceberg lettuce, the engineers at Redpack Packaging Machinery have been working closely with growers across the globe to come up with a solution that wraps iceberg in a…

Consumer demand for sustainable fresh produce packaging and healthy eating choices were the driving forces behind Visy's new fibre punnets. National Account Manager, Jamie O'Dell says the Enviropunnet™ is a sustainable, recyclable and market appealing option for packing fresh produce, and offers a…

500Foods shared this story from FP.com. Central Wisconsin based packaging company “The Paper People LLC” announced the introduction of their new patent pending paper packaging. Developed throughout the past two years in conjunction with several large U.S. based retailers, their new line of automated form-fill seal and stand up pouch paper…

Looye Kwekers manages the complete process, ranging from cultivation to custom consumer packaging, in-house. A packaging process with fast throughput without any malfunctions is highly desirable. Until recently, Beekenkamp's existing low-height AGF crate was used for harvesting at multiple sites and for transport to the central…

Although in the midst of the Covid-19 emergency plastic wrappers have been a safety precaution, the environmental impact of plastic is one of the most relevant issues at a global level. That is why governments and institutions have taken and continue taking measures against such materials. With its…

Increasing customer demands coupled with the need for automation and labor reduction make end-of-line packaging a key area for food producers. Produceprocessing recently checked in with representatives from three companies with expertise in this area. They include Wayne DeCou, Volm’s sales director of…