A lightweight, shallow, rigid tray for vacuum skin packing has been developed by UK-based Linpac Packaging (Featherstone, West Yorkshire; www.linpac.com). The company partnered with Italian machine manufacturer Mondini (Cologne; www.gmondini.com) and flexible packaging producer Bemis (Neenah, Wisconsin / USA; www.bemis.com) to create the pack, which has been adopted by a British supermarket chain.

Booths (www.booths.co.uk), a family-owned chain that operates stores in the North of England, has taken up the trays as they combine the extended shelf life associated with vacuum skin film with the presentation and protection benefits of rigid preformed trays. Linpac states that since the introduction of the package, sales of some meat products have increased by 80% at the supermarket chain.

Booths has its own in-house protein packer, which has been a Linpac customer for more than five years, taking delivery of rPET PE trays and “LINtop” lidding film. Booths decided to move from modified atmosphere packaging for some of their meat products after reviewing vacuum skin packaging solutions used by other retailers.

Linpac developed three application styles for use with rPET, PP and EPS trays to suit the various cuts of meat currently on sale and Mondini retro-fitted Booths’ machine with skin pack tooling to ensure a smooth production process. The retro-fit has since become standard on all subsequent tools.