We have clients from a wide range of industries, but one of our areas of specialization is producing high-quality, custom plastic food packaging. We’ve been creating food packaging since our earliest days, back in 1967. While a lot has changed in 50 years, our commitment to quality has never wavered. Here’s a quick look at what we can create for your specialty food products.
Types Of Food Packaging
At Indepak, we have vast experience creating a wide range of food packaging types, including:
Thermoform Plastic Trays – These trays can be designed as a single cavity to hold items such as fresh meat and poultry or we can design trays with multiple cavities for everything from microwavable dinners to cookie trays. Thermoform trays can be created with or without a lid, depending on your preference. We often make thermoform trays with lids for items such as fruit trays, veggie trays or bakery items.
Clamshells – Clamshell packaging is ideal for many products, especially fresh fruit and veggies. We design clamshells to hold ready-made salads and deli sandwiches, bakery items, fresh eggs and much more.
Tubs – We can create tubs with or without lids for many specialty food products, such as butter, sour cream, yogurt, salsa, pasta sauces or anything else you manufacture that might benefit from this type of packaging.
Modified Atmosphere Packaging – At Indepak, we can design trays and tubs suitable for Modified Atmosphere Packaging, often just called MAP or MAP packaging. Opting for modified atmosphere packaging can be an excellent option for many fresh food products, as it greatly extends the life of these foods. We don’t create the lidding films, but we will work with your lidding film supplier to ensure material compatibility
Rigid Plastics Vs. Flexible Plastics
At Indepak, we focus on producing plastic food packaging using rigid materials. Flexible packaging, sometimes called flex packs or flex bags, are another option for food packaging, but we do not create these types of bags. They can be a good option for some food products, such as nuts, dried fruit, trail mix and some liquids, but if you have a food product that is delicate such as crackers, cookies, fresh fruit, etc., it’s best to use rigid materials. Flexible packaging also cannot be recycled, unlike many types of rigid plastic.
Sustainability
Virtually all of the materials we use at Indepak are recyclable, and we can design plastic food packaging using materials with recycled content or with starch-based biomaterials, which is a type of plastic created with renewable materials. However, as a company, we also are committed to minimizing our impact on the environment in general and we go well beyond ISO 14001:2015 requirements, resulting in a very low-waste operation in every part of our company.
Food Packaging Safety
While an attractive design and a focus on sustainability are important factors, food safety is always our top concern. To that end, we have earned FSSC 22000 certification, which is an ISO-based set of standards created by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
The GFSI is a non-profit organization that works to improve food safety standards around the world. This includes improving safety in many different areas of food production, including farming practices, the production of animal feed, transport and storage of food and even aspects of food service, such as catering.
Our part in the food production chain is the production of food packaging, and the GFSI has set specific rigorous standards for companies in our industry. To earn FSSC 22000 certification, a packaging company must meet these standards and certification must be reviewed and renewed every few years to ensure that companies still meet or exceed the standards.
We are proud to have earned FSSC 22000 certification because we know this provides our customers with the peace of mind that every piece of food packaging we produce will be designed and created adhering to strict production methods.
Plastic Food Packaging Materials
Plastics can be an excellent option for food packaging for several reasons. Plastics are impact-resistant and protective, keeping your products safe during transport or if they have been knocked off a shelf at the store. Additionally, plastics are moisture-resistant which helps to preserve your food products. Plastics also are more affordable than most other types of packaging materials and cheaper to transport due to their light weight.
Materials such as glass are heavy and expensive to transport, not to mention that this material is easily breakable. While aluminum is lightweight and recyclable, it can be damaged easily and it’s an expensive option and not suitable for many products. Paperboard packaging can be damaged easily and often fails to lock out moisture and humidity.
At our facility, we have multiple lines of high-speed thermoforming equipment capable of processing a wide range of materials, including those approved by the Food & Drug Administration as acceptable for food contact. This includes materials such as PET, PETG, HDPE, Polypropylene (PP) and some starch-based bioplastics.
While these materials are FDA-approved for food contact, we also take other factors into consideration when selecting materials for your custom food packaging. For instance, if your plastic tray or package needs to be heated in a microwave oven, we will need to select materials with good heat resistance, such as polypropylene, which is a microwave-safe material.
