Instant food in the focus

The presentation centre of Sealed Air Cryovac near Paris hosted the Packforum® international seminar in November, last year. The event with over 80 participants from 20 countries focused on the market of instant foods. Instant food is one of the most dynamically expanding categories in the industry. Manufacturers can only be successful if they provide reliable quality, wide assortment, freshness, diverse flavours and convenience for their customers. According to the latest estimates, retail sales of instant foods can exceed USD 46 billion in 2007. The reason of dynamic growth is the growing number of people with limited time. – The retail trade of instant foods is determined by three major factors in the UK – begun his lecture Francesco Arena, from Cryovac Food Solutions. – The first is the time factor, the second is the „health” factor, and last, but not least is the flavour factor. According to Peta Conn, international director of packaging from Euromonitor UK:English retail chains are using famous chefs and restaurants to promote their instant food products. Another trend is that fat is “exiled” from products. For the French market leader Metro, the real challenge lies in the growing demand for instant food in catering, as work time is getting shorter, there is a shortage of qualified labour in restaurants and fluctuation is high. The Italian chain Conad, is relying on its private labels primarily: – We know now that the best strategy for us is to focus on the freshness and “home made” character of the product – says Giuseppe Zuliani, from Conad Italy. For American consumers, convenience is the most important consideration. Hormel Foods has succeeded redefining the phrase “convenience” with the Cryovac® Simple StepsTM packaging. The new instant product of Hormel are ready to serve within 4 minutes. Fresh, refrigerated pizzas have become more popular, than frozen products. Using protective gas (MAP) solutions, products can be kept longer in stores. The introduction of Cryovac PizzafreshTM by Geest helped them to extend the period their pizzas can be kept on the shelves. According to Steve Freeman from Schwan, innovative packaging plays a key role in growth, since it offers solutions for basic problems like cooking in a micro wave oven, cost effectiveness, recycling, or simplicity of preparing. Cryovac has brought out a number of innovative new products for its instant food product line. These include: packaging suitable for use in traditional and micro wave ovens, special trays which can be held in bare hands, micro waveable packaging suitable for steaming, pizza packaging with vacuum or protective gas.