Hip To Be Square
By Canadian Packaging Staff
General IPL PACK EXPO International 2010 TrustpackIPL reshapes the look of food safety through tamper-evidence innovatio
Food safety is a deadly serious business these days, and packaging suppliers are not exempt from the hefty burden of obligation in ensuring optimal security and freshness for food products making their way through the supply chain and onto our dinner plates.
And by any measure, Saint-Damien, Que.-based plastic products manufacturer IPL Inc. appears to be more than merely doing its part for the cause—having just developed a new-generation plastic food shipping container boasting a highly innovative Trustpack tamper-evidence feature that could well reshape some long-held notions of food safety, freshness, value and ease-of-use among enduse customers in the retail and wholesale food, restaurant, foodservice, institutional and other major food industry sectors.
Produced at the company’s manufacturing facility in Edmundston, N.B., the Trustpack container will be unveiled for the first time at the upcoming PACK EXPO International 2010 packaging technologies exhibition in Chicago, Oct. 31 – Nov. 3, with the company planning a full-production launch in early 2011, according to IPL Plastics chief marketing manager Jean-Pierre Simard.
“We are very excited by this new product that will help consumers feel more confident in the safety of the products they purchase,” Simard told Canadian Packaging recently. “Food needs to be free from contamination
and tampering, and IPL has addressed this need by creating a unique integrity indicator, the new Trustpack tamper-evident system.”
Unlike conventional containers utilizing detachable break-tab closures to provide tamper evidence, Simard explains, the recyclable polypropylene Trustpack containers feature a unique ‘integrity indicator’ built into each of the four corners of the square-shaped lid—providing an easy visual clue from all angles as to whether the container has been opened or tampered with.
Says Simard: “Previous tamper-evident containers used a break-tab system which was confusing to use and prone to contamination, but the new ‘skirtless-f lange’ design eliminates the risk of contamination on the production line and increases customer confidence in product safety with an easy visual inspection—making them completely confident that no one has tampered with the contents of the Trustpack container they
purchased.
“It is also easy to open and close in one single motion, it is easy to manipulate, and it remains stable in a stack,” says Simard, stressing that the squarish design also provides key distribution and palletizing advantages over the traditional roundpail containers used to ship bulkier foods.
“Yield and efficiency are necessary goals in our highly competitive market,” he notes, “which is why the Trustpack container uses an effective shape that optimizes shipping and warehousing costs.
“We can put 40 per cent more full Trustpack containers onto a 48-inch pallet compared to the industry-standard round containers, which means our customers can ship and sell more products into the Club Store markets,” Simard asserts.
“The container is also film seal-ready for accommodating extended shelf-life products,” notes Simard, citing a lengthy list of well-suited, compatible products such as prepared salads; grated and specialty cheeses; fruit salads; soups and sauces; confectioneries; spreads and dips; pastry fillings, icings and glazes; spices and nutritional supplements; and powdered detergents.
Adds Simard: “The container continues to be leakproof even after it is opened up for the first time—containers have never been so secure!”
Offered in 2.5-liter and five-pound volume capacities, the square-shaped Trustpack containers also offer inherently better graphic design and branding opportunities for the actual product, Simard relates, the via an advanced IML (in-mold labeling) decoration process.
The distinctive square shape offers a large surface area for labeling and graphics to enable brand-owners to incorporate photo-quality IML decorations in a wide range of colors,” Simard sums up, “so for all national brand-owners or private-label brands, Trustpack offers a real innovative way to maximize product differentiation while improving safety, sustainability and transportation efficiencies.”
IPL Inc. will be exhibiting Trustpack containers throughout the PACK EXPO International 2010 exhibition at the McCormick Place on lower level of the Lakeside Building at Booth # 8613, while also displaying its full range of RPC (reusable plastic container) material handling products at Booth #5108.
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