Summer is over and we are getting ready for a new routine: a new school year is just around the corner and companies -alternately with smart working – are getting ready to welcome their employees back to the office.
In this hesitant effort to start a new daily routine, there are many challenges facing companies. But there is one particularly common to both schools and workplaces: the lunchtime.
So let’s get back to talking about food packaging, exploring the key role it plays in this new normality, where hygiene, convenience and product preservation are more important than ever.
Packaging that’s missing from canteens and takeaways
So lunch on the go is back in vogue. We may have forgotten, but at a time when we didn’t even know what pandemic meant, the issue of sustainable food packaging in the restaurant and catering industry was particularly relevant.
Covid’s emergence has clearly moved attention elsewhere, but with the restart in sight, we are asking the question again, perhaps even more urgently. The Italian government, for example, has encouraged the catering industry to use single use, compostable packaging.
There are basically two objectives: maximum hygiene and a greater focus on sustainability.
Eco-friendly lunch boxes can be an alternative, but it is not enough: there is still too much packaging made of non-recyclable material on our tables. Just think of dressings and sauces, jams or spreads, almost all of which come in plastic sachets or single-use portions.
But there is a solution and it is the aluminium tube. Small, hygienic and sustainable, it represents one of the few solutions that can really satisfy both the catering and retail industries.
There are so many possible applications, just think of children’s snacks: jam or spreadable creams in tubes would be perfect in a school bag because they take up no extra space, don’t get dirty and can be closed with a simple screw cap.
Let’s also think about company canteens, where dressings and sauces are almost always presented in single-use sachets, which are also very uncomfortable to use: we are sure that you have at least once tried to open a sachet of mayonnaise and that it was quite complicated, with greasy hands and sauce everywhere.
And now imagine an aluminium tube of mayonnaise on your tray: you unscrew the capsule, remove the seal and squeeze the product onto your salad. And that’s it: no mess and no waste of product, because it is also resealable once opened.
The new challenges of post-pandemic food packaging
The main task of food packaging is to preserve product quality, reduce food waste and the environmental and economic impact of production and distribution chains. Especially in view of the new requirements imposed by the pandemic.
This means that the functional properties of the packaging must adapt to the food and not the opposite, especially if we consider transport and storage.
In general, packaging properties hardly ever fully meet the requirements of the food. As a result, we end up with overpackaging, poorly designed or unsuitable for the product’s lifecycle.
Let’s take again the example of sauces and condiments in sachets: how much secondary packaging has to be used to guarantee the product’s quality from the supply chain to canteens and supermarket shelves?
The resulting environmental impact is shocking.
Aluminium tubes are not only sustainable in terms of the materials they are made of, but they also represent a well-sized and appropriate packaging for food products which does not require additional packaging, even in terms of marketing strategies.
ToBeUnique, our unique tube printing process, makes it possible to avoid secondary packaging: everything you need to impress the consumer and entice them to choose us is already printed on the tube surface.
And when it comes to hygiene, it’s a no-brainer: jam in tubes in school bags or on hotel breakfast buffets is one of the few (if not the only) hygienic and sustainable packaging solutions for this type of product.
Aluminium tubes are not only easy and practical to use, but also allow the product to be consumed without contamination as it can be squeezed directly onto the food without contact with hands or surfaces!
If you need a hygienic, food-safe, manageable and sustainable food packaging, contact us! We will be happy to send you a sample of our tubes!
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