How to package refrigerated and frozen foods
Ever since technology enabled the mass production of refrigerators in the 1930s, people have enjoyed the convenience of frozen and refrigerated foods. Packaging plays an important role in protecting foods and ensuring they stay fresh, but those that need to be stored in the refrigerator pose extra challenges from both a food safety and a design perspective. What’s the secret to effective packaging for refrigerated and frozen food?
Good barrier properties
Packaging plays an important role in minimising waste by prolonging shelf life. What’s more, it ensures food stays both safe to consume and appealing to consumers for as long as possible. There are two main packaging parameters when it comes to preserving refrigerated food: keeping it fresh and protecting it from tough chilled conditions. This is why the barrier properties of packaging materials are highly important. Packaging should act as a barrier to light, oxygen, moisture and potential contaminants while keeping food from drying out. It should also help preserve colour, texture and nutritional value.
Technical performance
Many cold foods come with specific performance requirements. Let’s take the example of butter wrap: packaging needs to be resilient to grease and be able to stand up to chilled environments. But at the same time, it needs to offer excellent foldability and tear resistance, as the wrap will be folded again and again as the slab of butter gets smaller. When it comes to ice cream cones, resistance to low temperatures and humidity is a must, but so are excellent crimping capabilities and the ability to stand up to fast-moving converting processes.
Eye-catching design
Packaging not only protects food, it also helps it stand out on the shelf, appeal to customers and give them an idea of what’s inside. When it comes to cold foods, some extra thought needs to go into packaging design. Refrigerated and frozen foods are displayed in refrigerated cabinets or freezer storage, meaning that designers have to go the extra mile to ensure that packaging stands out behind a foggy glass door. So how can you boost the visibility and shelf appeal of cold foods? By making bold choices when it comes to colours, ensuring fonts are highly legible and making use of imagery to clearly communicate your brand.
AR Metallizing’s METIVO line offers a range of metallized papers and boards for direct and indirect food packaging. METIVO is suitable for a range of applications, including refrigerated food packaging, and offers excellent technical performance, design versatility and compatibility with conventional converting processes.