Tetra Pak has launched a new carton packaging system, which enables retorted food to be packed in cartons.
The new system, named Tetra Recart, is suitable for wet shelf-stable food that has traditionally been packed in cans or glass jars, such as soups, sauces, tomato products, fruits, vegetables and pet foods.
Retorting is a thermal processing method, carried out at a similar speed to canning. Food packed in the new cartons will have the same advantages of canned food in that they will stay fresh without refrigeration.
However, the carton offers solutions to many of the problems traditionally associated with cans. Tetra Pak believe that this makes the product very competitive and suggests that it could make a strong impact on the established canned food market.
The new product looks like the existing cartons for liquid foods, but is produced differently and it has a new opening solution. The carton material is 75 per cent paperboard with a polymer coating and a paper-thin aluminum lining. This material is lightweight and easily stored. More importantly for the consumer, cartons are easier to open than cans, and are recyclable.
The innovation is a move away from Tetra Pak's primary focus which has been on liquid food packaging until now.