Tray Packaging 101. Understanding the Materials and Applications of Food Trays. Part 2

Today’s increasingly busy lifestyles require convenience and reliability when it comes to food essentials. That stands especially true for semi and fully-cooked foods, produce, and snacks.

Tray packaging can offer many advantages for brands selling edible products. The first step is selecting the correct material, size, and shape for your product.

Here are the benefits tray packaging can leverage over other methods of food packaging:

Safety

The recent covid-19 pandemic has created lasting effects on the way we package, serve and eat food. 

Tray packaging offers an easier, safer alternative to the buffet system used in hospitals and universities. 

Reducing Allergy Mishaps

The rise in food allergy statistics is staggering. With tray packaging, a larger selection can be offered to cater to different food sensitivities and allergies. 

All with reduced risk of cross-contamination with allergy-triggering foods such as soy, gluten, and nuts. That is also great news for people with food preferences such as kosher or vegan.

Preventing Contamination

To enhance food safety, antimicrobial chemicals can be added directly into the resin used for tray packaging material. That can practically eradicate the growth of viruses and bacteria in packaged food items. While maintaining its taste, color, and nutritional value.

Durability During Transit

Tray packaging is a more durable option for foods that need to withstand rough handling or that need to undergo long transits. Most materials used for manufacturing food trays are compatible with top sealing machines making them leak-proof and increasingly resilient to damage.

With the recent increase in online grocery shopping, easier transits are a huge advantage for your brand to have over its competition. Food products now typically need to travel longer to reach the end consumer.

Not only is this great for preventing food waste, but it also saves your company a lot of spoiled and damaged finished products.

Versatility of Material

As discussed in the first part of this article, tray packaging can be done in many different materials. Making it the choice for most food brands across the globe. 

Whatever your edible product may be, there will be a tray packaging solution suitable for it.

Transparency

While this might seem like a minute detail, consumers prefer products they can examine. In fact, transparency of packaging material plays a major role in a consumer selecting a particular product over another. 

Food trays can be sealed with transparent shrink film or domed lids. Both options boast great visibility for your finished food products.

Easy-To-Open

Mess-free food packaging options that are easy to open are a big hit among today’s fast-paced consumers. Customers need packaging solutions that don’t need a can opener or scissors to open.

Think busy moms or an office worker on a short lunch break. Tray packaging lids can be easily modified to be easily opened and resealed on the go.

Compliance With Food Standards

Food trays can be modified to comply with different food and safety regulations, from the materials used, to the sealing that needs to be ensured on edible products.

Food trays are easy to modify. So it's easier for your brand to alter packaging in accordance with the latest health and safety regulations. Be it a change in raw material, or a particular type of seal on certain edibles. 

A few tweaks in all it takes to guarantee compliance. The wide variety of tray packaging available means one less thing to worry about for your brand.

Scalability

Tray packing machines can easily be calibrated to work with food trays of varying sizes and materials. Ensuring seamless automation and reduction of hands-on labour required to run your factory. 

Automation means scaling up production is easier around peak times such as holidays or game seasons. That’s cost-effective for your company, and opens new opportunities for profit. After all, what fun is watching the ball game without a grazing platter?

Reduction of Carbon Emissions and Food Waste

Tray packaging offers dual benefits when it comes to being environmentally conscious. Most machineries used to make, fill and seal food trays are energy efficient. The shrink film used to form the seals is also designed to vacuum pack the trays at lower temperatures.

Smart technology ensures each tray is properly sealed before it heads down for secondary packaging. Advanced moisture resistance ensures a longer shelf-life for your products. 

Meaning fresh produce can be packaged at its peak of ripeness. Reducing food waste at the farm level.

Often, labelling is done directly on the lids used to seal the trays, reducing the amount of raw material used per tray. Moreover, most tray packaging is now constructed out of widely recycled plastics, paper, or plant-based materials.

Space and Cost Saving 

Tray packaging offers a solution for compartmentalising different foods together without compromising their tastes and textures. That extends space-saving benefits at all stages of food processing.

Pre-cooked shrimp can be arranged in an aesthetically pleasing pattern around an individually sealed tub of dipping sauce. Identical trays are easier to stack together for secondary packaging, further saving your company in transit and fuel costs.

These savings and ease of use are passed on to your consumer by offering them cost-effective food options.

Ready to Avail of These Benefits of Tray Packaging?

BluePrint automation offers a wide range of automated machinery to leverage all these benefits of tray packaging in your favour. We offer custom-tailored solutions to streamline and automate your entire packaging process to meet the needs of today’s consumers. Contact us now to see how BluePrint Automation can help you realise your brand excel.

Our job doesn’t end with selling you equipment; we believe it merely starts there. Blueprint automation is your one-stop shop for all packaging essentials.

From the selection of materials to what type of secondary packing material is most suited for your products, our highly skilled teams will guide you every step of the way. Our high-end packaging is always manufactured following the hygiene and food safety requirements.