Stora Enso Consumer Board
FIN-55800 IMATRA, Finland
Tel. +358 2046 121
Fax +358 2046 24716
PRESS RELEASE
11 September 2007
Introducing Trayforma Special - Enhanced trays for Prima ready-meals
M+P Tiefkühlkost is a leading German producer of ready-to-eat meals. The company's successful 'Prima' product concept is very much based on attractive paperboard packaging, now enhanced by the new Trayforma Special board from Stora Enso.
'Prima' meals can be found in supermarkets all around Germany and increasingly in other European countries. There is a large number of options in the range, which features different food trends, such as traditional, international, low-calorie and organic. The meals are packed in folded trays with paperboard lids. "Innovative package design is strongly associated with our entire product concept. For example, our specially designed two-compartment tray enables us to offer balanced traditional meals with different ingredients in their own compartments," says the company's owner Michael Pauls.
Convenience is the keyword
Eating becomes individual as households get smaller, which is the current trend throughout Europe. Time is a scarce resource for many and quality food must be readily available and easy to prepare. These developments create new markets for ready-to-eat meals. M+P Tiefkühlkost aims to be the European quality and cost leader in premium ready-to-eat meals.
When selling convenience, paperboard trays have a number of advantages. All you need is the tray - for selling, storing, preparing and serving the meal. The new Trayforma Special board has a white PET coating which offers consumers the choice of heating the food in a microwave or conventional oven. M+P Tiefkühlkost has paid particular attention to the easy opening of the lid. It must be very easy to remove when there is hot food inside, without burning fingers. Mr Pauls underlines the sustainability aspects of the packaging concept. "Paperboard is a renewable and recyclable material option, unlike plastic and aluminium. The combination of a paperboard tray and lid reduces material consumption. This is the right answer to the environmental challenges that we are facing today."
Enhanced print result
A folded tray provides lots of printable surfaces to use for branding and product information. "Thanks to its smooth surface, the new board quality gives more brilliance to the print. The board also performs very well in die cutting," says Christian Lorenz from the printing house Masterpack. His company had an important role in testing the new quality together with M+P Tiefkühlkost and Stora Enso before its market launch.
"Our targets were to improve the strength of the package and to ensure good runnability in high-speed automatic packaging lines," Mr Pauls says. "As the folded edges of the tray are only attached by means of coating, without using any glue, it is essential that this attachment is strong enough. The package must stand freezing as well as heating in a microwave and conventional oven. Purity and good taint and odour properties of the board are equally important as the product must pass through our stringent quality control."
Marcus Weise, Manager Tray Business at Stora Enso, explains how Trayforma Special can meet these requirements. "The board is specially developed for folded trays. The baseboard is new and it contains chemi-thermomechanical pulp for additional stiffness and bulk, and its triple-clay-coated surface provides superb print result. White PET coating makes the board suitable for microwaves and conventional ovens and preserves the board's pure white look after cooking."
Direct link to picture: http://bmt.storaenso.com/storaensolink.jsp?imageid=070807CB01
For further information:
Stora Enso Consumer Board
Marcus Weise, Manager Tray Business
Tel. +49 40 35 09 90
Stora Enso Consumer Board
Sanna Heiskanen, Marketing Communications Specialist
Tel. +358 20 46 23 440
E-mail: sanna.heiskanen@storaenso.com
