Amcor, a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging solutions, announced it has designed and produced a bespoke three-compartment ready meal tray for a new range of single-serve ambient microwaveable ready meals from specialist French manufacturer Cofigeo. In line with Cofigeo's sustainability commitments, the tray has been created to conform to Design for Recycling guidelines, offering a lightweight mono-material polypropylene (PP) construction that is suitable for collection and reprocessing in France's recycling infrastructure.

The trays will be used to package five distinct French and Italian style recipes from the William Saurin Mon Trio Gourmand range, each featuring meat or fish, a starchy food and a vegetable. Keeping the three main ingredients separate enables consumers to choose whether to mix them when the meal is eaten.

Working in close collaboration with the customer, Amcor devised a tray with different sized compartments that took into account the various sizes, textures and densities of all the ingredients. At the same time, the tray had to meet Cofigeo's other key requirements — to be suitable to run on existing filling lines, de-stackable, retortable, provide an effective oxygen barrier and ensure ease of use for the end-consumer.

"This was a challenging project, especially given its shape, to make the tray as thin as possible, but thanks to the technical support of Amcor, we have managed to achieve the same wall thickness as our standard single compartment version," said Jean-Michel Perquin, Cofigeo Group Packaging R&D Manager. "Equally important, despite the number of different ingredients across the five meals, all are filled efficiently on the line."

The multi-layer PP tray incorporates a barrier that delivers over 12 months' ambient shelf-life for the five meals. The tray is manufactured in a near-infrared (NIR) terracotta masterbatch, ensuring it can be recognized by NIR sensors in recycling facilities.

"Consumer reaction to the tray has been very positive," said Benjamin Margerand, William Saurin Marketing Product Manager. "The freedom to keep separate or mix the three recipe components has proved popular, and the tray is practical enough to enable consumers to eat straight from it. Indeed, in pre-launch testing, depending on the recipe, up to 80% of consumers said they were planning to eat directly from the tray. The color has also been well received."

"Amcor has been a trusted supplier to Cofigeo for many years, and we have an excellent relationship with the company," concluded Jean-Michel. "As a result, the development process was easy, and I thank the Amcor team for everything they did to support us during the project. They were always professional and even when there were complications, able to identify the best solutions."