FDBusiness.com

KM Packaging Services has achieved a major breakthrough in packaging for ambient ready meals containing uncooked meat, vegetables and sauces. The company’s latest film technology can provide these products with impressive shelf-life of up to 12 months.

Usually presented in a C’PET tray, these ambient ready meals require lidding films that are ovenable and able to withstand rigorous retort processes, which must be performed to keep the contents of the ready meal fresh and safe from any bacteria.

After exhaustive product trials, which took into account environmental and processing elements as well as the behaviour of various contents of sample pre-prepared meals themselves, KM Packaging exclusively developed two new film material specifications for a wide range of ambient ready meals.

Far exceeding the performance of films currently used by some food manufacturers, KM Packaging’s latest ovenable lidding films have proven to be even more reliable, whilst delivering superior peelability, exceptional high barrier properties and incomparable film clarity.

Now available under KM Packaging’s Superguard X range, which carries a selection of strong, high barrier films suitable for a wide range of applications, the new films can guarantee ultimate product integrity of uncooked produce stored at ambient temperatures for nearly a year.

KM Packaging’s managing director, Charles Smithson, says: “Our latest lidding film technology has stemmed from a number of requests from food manufacturers. They have recently come under increasing pressure to source more resilient and reliable packaging materials following a significant increase in demand for sophisticated, ambient ready meals from organisations such as airlines, the military and shipping vessels. Typically ambient pre-prepared meals only last up to 8 weeks, which can often lead to significant product waste. KM Packaging recognised the need for a superior high performance lidding film and with our vast experience in the food manufacturing industry we were able to easily identify the key performance criteria of the material required to do the job.”

One of the most important aspects that has led to the success of KM Packaging’s latest lidding films is the company’s ability to identify the key film functionalities that would be affected by different processing techniques, storage atmospheres and logistic conditions that the product would be placed in.

For more information about KM Packaging and its range of flexible and reliable packaging solutions, visit www.kmpack.co.uk or call +44 (0)1832 274944.