Supermarket Perimeter - January 2021 - 61

PACKAGING

year after year. Understanding
customer needs and challenges
is the top priority which
guides product and packaging
automation development.
Inline has an in-house
packaging automation team
that spends time understanding
customer packaging processes
and develops machines that
speed up their packaging stage,
lowers the dependency on labor
and reduces cost.
Most recently, Inline has
answered the need for more
sustainable packaging and has
announced its new reborn
initiative, where all Inline
products are now made with
post-consumer content.
With this effort, close to 1
billion water bottles will be
diverted from the ocean and
landﬁlls in the ﬁrst year, with the
goal to increase that number
as such material becomes
more broadly available, Korwek
said. The trademarked rDPET
material used further saves
on greenhouse emissions and
provides food grade packaging
with the lowest carbon
footprint on the market today.
All Inline products are 100%
recyclable.

Tamper-resistant
on the rise
Throughout the pandemic,
Novolex has seen a rise in
demand for tamper-resistant
features, including Novolex's
Load & Seal tamper-evident bags
and hot and cold food containers
with tamper visible locks,
Hernandez said.
" These products help give
consumers an added sense of
safety and security knowing their
package has not been tampered
with, " she said.
Food packaging is a
consistently growing ﬁeld,
Hernandez said, and the demand
for products and innovation from
Novolex are trending upward.
The company continues to
receive requests from a variety
of food commissaries for
various applications, including
prepackaged hot and cold
sandwiches, burritos, calzones,
bread, pretzels, donuts, cookies
and other deli and bakery
snack items.
Novolex's Breakaway and
Smart Tab cold food container
solutions meet a variety of needs
for food on the go, she said.
COVID-19 has also driven more
consumers to shop at grocery

We've witnessed a
signiﬁcant increase in this
area, and that trend will
continue to be the case.
Commissaries in general
will become a continued
resource to deliver safe,
secure food options. "
Sarah Korwek, Inline Plastics

Packaging has become an ever-important part of the food industry,
and innovations from Novolex and other suppliers are helping to meet
commissaries' and retailers' changing needs.

stores, creating a new demand
for tamper resistant containers
that provide additional safety
measures, Hernandez said.
The most important advantage
retailers have in buying packaged
products at the commissary level
is food safety, which is a top
priority in our supply chain, said
Jennifer Heller, vice president of
Waddington North America, a
Novolex brand.
" The pandemic has
exacerbated the need for new
standards of safety, " she said.
" Thankfully, buying prepackaged
items guarantees fewer hands
have touched the ﬁnal product. "
Novolex offers a portfolio
of leading brands, Heller said,
and the company has built its
resources in a way that allows it
to pivot quickly, utilizing existing
machines and capabilities for a
variety of applications, whether

supermarketperimeter.com

it's PPE, deli containers or
tortilla bags.
" While COVID turned the world
upside down, our company has
been able to adapt quickly to
meet changing demands and
diversify our portfolio, " she said.
" Novolex innovation is about
ﬁnding solutions to the unique
challenges we all ﬁnd ourselves
in today. "
Another trend Novolex is
tracking in the COVID era is the
proliferation of ghost kitchens.
With the pandemic, Heller said,
take-out has superseded instore
dining, and ghost kitchens allow
for the cooking space but without
the retail store front.
" I would think more kitchens
like this that emulate a
commissary would appear in the
near future. They would have
similar needs to commissaries
and central kitchens. "
JANUARY 2021 - 61
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Supermarket Perimeter - January 2021

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