Plastic trays are an excellent packaging option for many products, ranging from specialty foods to medical kits to many retail products. Since 1967, the team at Indepak has been designing custom trays for a wide variety of industries. Here’s a quick look at the types of trays we can provide our clients.
Custom Plastic Food Trays
Plastic trays are an ideal option for many specialty food products. At Indepak, we can design a simple tray with a single cavity to hold one specific food item, such as a steak or a deli sandwich or a complex tray with multiple custom cavities in varying shapes or sizes.
We also can design trays with or without lids, depending on your needs and we use a variety of materials approved by the FDA for food contact. Throughout the years, we have designed custom food trays for the following:
• Fresh Fruits & Vegetables (with custom lids)
• Cheese Trays & Party Trays (with custom lids)
• Microwavable Meals
• Candies, Cookies & Crackers
• Fresh Meats, Fish & Poultry
• Fresh Pasta & Prepared Salads
• Convenience Foods (Snack Kits/Sandwiches, etc.)
When it comes to items such as fresh pasta, fresh meats, poultry and other fresh foods, we can design plastic trays suitable for use as modified atmosphere packaging. While we do not produce film materials for lidding, we will work closely with your lidding supplier to ensure material compatibility. Of course, we also can design plastic clamshell containers for your fresh food items, as well as plastic tubs (with or without lids) for products such as butter or sour cream.
Our company also has earned FSSC 22000 certification. This is an ISO-based set of standards created by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), a non-profit organization that works to improve food safety standards around the world. All of our specialty food packaging is designed and produced following these rigorous FSSC 22000 standards.
Custom Plastic Medical Trays
For our medical and pharmaceutical clients, we know that precision and safety are crucial. We can design medical packaging to hold syringes and vials of medicine, surgical equipment, medical devices and much more.
We produce low particulate packaging, intended for non-sterile or downstream sterilization applications. Our detailed record-keeping ensures traceability down to the box level. Whether you need custom trays or another type of medical packaging, we can provide you with quality designs that adhere to rigorous safety standards.
Custom Trays For Electronics
We are a long-time leader in the production of thermoformed electronics packaging, including custom trays. We have the knowledge, techniques and materials to ensure that static-sensitive products are protected. We work with materials that range from dissipative to conductive, depending on your product needs.
Custom Trays For Industrial Use
While many of our plastic trays end up in the hands of consumers, we also produce industrial trays for internal use as well as business-to-business tote trays. These often are used in automation applications and frequently have anti-static properties. We produce industrial thermoform trays with tight tolerances, so they are inherently accurate and work flawlessly in your processes.
Custom Trays For Retail Products
A custom tray can be the right fit for many retail products. For instance, you might need a tray to hold various hardware products, such as a set of screwdrivers or other tools or perhaps nails, screws and bolts. Trays also can be a good option for office supply kits, toys, makeup sets, and many other multi-item products.
Custom Trays For Agriculture
Producing custom trays for seedlings, plants and other agricultural items is another area of specialization at Indepak. Whether you need flats with one cavity for carrying multiple agricultural products or you need custom trays with multiple cavities, we have the experience and knowledge to produce precisely what you need.
Custom Tray Design
Our design team works closely with clients every step of the way, from concept to prototyping and on to production. We pay close attention to space, weight, strength, cost containment and presentation to ensure that every client ends up with the best packaging solution for their needs and budget.
One of the ways we keep costs low for our customers is by keeping everything in-house. This includes the design process as well as prototyping and tooling. Producing top-quality plastic trays and plastic packaging is made possible in part by our in-house tooling department. This allows us to control all aspects of tool building, and we also believe that the quality of the packaging we produce correlates directly to the quality of the tool that we build for you.
Custom Tray Production
Our custom plastic trays are produced using specialty machines known as thermoformers. Large sheets of thermoform plastic feed into the machines, are heated to a malleable temperature and then formed into trays using vacuum forming or pressure forming
Vacuum forming by itself tends to be less expensive than pressure forming, and this can be an ideal option when fine detailing isn’t necessary. If aesthetics and detailing are crucial, you will want to go with pressure forming, which includes a combination of vacuum force and pressure to create those fine details and crisp edges that you want.
No matter what level of detail you might need, we have multiple lines of high-speed thermoforming equipment, allowing us to meet the needs of a diverse clientele. Our equipment is capable of thermoforming rigid plastic materials from .008” to .080” in thickness.
When it comes to sustainability, virtually all of the thermoform plastics we use at Indepak are recyclable, and some of our most commonly used materials include ABS, HDPE, HIPS, OPS, PET, PETG, PP and PVC, as well as starch-based bioplastics. Many of these options are approved for use as food and medical packaging. We also can produce custom trays using materials with recycled content.
