Meat + Poultry - June 2010 - 65

ForpaK

PACKAGING SOLUTIONS

IT ALL
STACKS UP

FF ;o

To other consumers, unattended
cooking is a convenience feature...
you can put something in the oven
and you don't have to do anything
else; you know it's being taken care
of and you have a 99 percent chance
of having a good product at the end."
Among the biggest challenges regarding marketing new convenient
packaging is how can the consumer
recognize its value without trying it,
Wilson says. "How do you promote
it?" he asks. "How do consumers become aware of why this is convenient?
The products I mentioned have an
awful lot of good features, but one
of the biggest hurdles is how is the
consumer or customer going to know
that before trying it?"
Technical challenges could include
getting adhesives to the balance they
need to be to ensure recloseability, and
formulating a barrier bag or shrink bag
to tear linearly like a Grip and Tear
bag, among other things. "When you
look at some of the things that go into
high-temperature packaging, there are
regulatory issues with regard to what
resins you can use or what ink can you
print to what approved resins."

Easy open, effective close

REDUCE LABOR

........................ .

INCREASE THROUGHPUT
EASY KEYPAD SELECTION
MULTI-LANE STACKER
INDEPENDENT LANE COUNT

PAPER
INTERLEAVING
...................................
.
HAMBURGER * SAUSAGE
CHICKEN* FISH PATTIES, ETC.

952-882-6211
www.forpak.com
A Division of MultiSource Manufacturing

Examples of the most-wanted consumer convenience features are tear
tabs on pouches and zipper closures
for easy opening plus resealability
of pouches or large packages of deli
meats, CMS' Till says.
"Zipper closures, along with improved barrier bags and pouch materials, do a good job of maintaining
freshness," Till says. "Consumers
also want packaging in which foods
can be reheated in the microwave or
the oven. These bags may have zipper closures as well."
CMS recently designed new retail
pouches for the meat-jerky industry.
"Many changes have been made in
these pouches over the years," Till
says. "We have added an easy-open
tear notch plus an easy-reseal zipper
closure to keep the product fresh."
CMS has recently designed ther-

66 * Meat&Poultry * June 2010 * www.MeatPoultry.com

moformed plastic packaging with an
easy-open feature for whole chickens
in the retail market. "Traditionally,
thermoformed packaging has been notoriously difficult to open," Till says.
"CMS has incorporated tear tabs to
make opening the package much easier for the consumer. CMS is the only
packaging company currently offering
a tear-tab feature on thermoformed
packaging for whole chickens."
Challenges in developing convenient packaging appear to be application-specific and include an
incremental increase in unit cost,
as convenience features are incorporated into packaging, Till says.
"Also, processors may incur a capital
expenditure for converting existing
production line equipment to accommodate packaging with convenience
features," he adds.
One challenge for a packaging
designer might be developing a
soup pouch, for example, that can
be sealed by the processor and then
able to be resealed after opening by
the consumer, he added.

"Vacuum-skin
packaging helps
retain moisture in
the frozen product
and eliminates
freezer burn."
The future
CMS has observed a need for more
convenient frozen poultry packaging applications for smaller portion
sizes, Till says. "We are offering
fi lms that work with vacuum-skin
packaging technology, a process in
which the fi lm is placed over chicken
breasts in a tray and is then vacuumsealed. Vacuum-skin packages allow
consumers to purchase and freeze
smaller or individual portions and
remove just the amount of product
they want and reseal the rest.
"Vacuum-skin packaging helps retain moisture in the frozen product and

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Meat + Poultry - June 2010

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