Packaging Redesign and Process Optimisation to Prevent Waste

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Menü Manufaktur is a provider of tailor-made catering systems with frozen and chilled menus and menu components for modern communal catering. Its customers receive catering concepts with a variety of artisanally produced menus and components in various packaging units such as trays (multiple portions) and plates (single portions). They cook many portions every day in their own kitchen, divided into various assortments. This project is about eliminating and avoiding different packaging systems while maintaining the desired quality.

Department

Applied Life Sciences

Plastic packaging in particular should be designed to be recyclable and sustainable. For many food products, there are still no packaging solutions on the market that adequately fulfil both requirements. There is a particular need for action in the area of flexible multilayer packaging: Here, several layers of material combined into films (mainly polymers, paper and aluminium) enable optimised product protection, but at the same time these combinations severely limit mechanical recyclability. In order to maintain the advantages of flexible multilayer packaging, such as optimised product protection and low packaging weight, while at the same time implementing mechanical recyclability, innovative coatings on mono-polyolefin films are being pursued as a solution. The aim of the project is to avoid waste that arises from (re)packaging as far as possible.

Research Goals

Implementation of reusable meal trays
Conversion of disposable cartons for temporary storage to a suitable reusable system
Conversion of disposable transport cartons to a suitable reusable system
Raising awareness