This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.
This Website Uses Cookies
By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn More
This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.
Packaging Strategies logo
search
cart
facebook twitter linkedin youtube
  • Sign In
  • Create Account
  • Sign Out
  • My Account
Packaging Strategies logo
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Digital Edition
    • Subscribe
    • Archives
    • PS Resource Guide
    • Design Gallery Directory
  • Featured
    • Packaging Perspectives Podcasts
    • Packaging News
    • New Packages
    • Web Exclusives
    • Blogs
    • Supply Side
    • Supplier Products
    • Top Food Packaging Companies
    • Top Beverage Packaging Companies
  • PS News
    • Digital Editions
    • Special Reports
    • Subscribe
    • Sample Issue
    • Reprints
    • Customer Service
  • Machinery
    • Automation / Controls
    • Case Forming / Packing / Sealing
    • Cartoning
    • Coding / Marking / Printing
    • Components / Parts
    • Conveyors
    • Form-Fill-Seal / Filling & Closing
    • Inspection / Detection / Vision
    • Labeling
    • Unitizing / Palletizing
    • Robotics
    • Track & Trace / Serialization
  • Vertical Markets
    • Beer / Wine / Spirits Packaging
    • Beverage Packaging
    • Candy / Confectionery
    • Dairy Food Packaging
    • Food Service Packaging
    • Household Packaging
    • Meat / Seafood Packaging
    • Personal Care Packaging
    • Pet Food Packaging
    • Pharma / Medical Packaging
    • Produce Packaging
    • Snack Food Packaging
  • Materials
    • Adhesives / Sealants
    • Beverage Multipacks
    • Blister Packaging
    • Cans & Bottles
    • Closures/Lids
    • Films & Coatings
    • Flexible Packaging
    • Labels
    • Paperboard / Corrugated / Cartons
    • Rigid Containers
    • Sustainable Packaging
  • Brand Packaging
    • Design Gallery Directory
  • Events
    • Converters Expo
    • Converters Expo South
    • Global Pouch Forum
    • Industry Events
    • Webinars
  • More
    • Videos
      • Pack Expo 2019 Videos
      • PMMI video series
    • Book Store
    • Classifieds
    • Custom Content & Marketing Services
    • eBook
    • eXTRA eNewsletter
    • Interactive Product Spotlights
    • Market Research
    • The Packaging Guide
    • Polls
    • White Papers
  • Contact
  • Advertise
Home » Retortable Carton: A New 'Face'
Brand Packaging

Retortable Carton: A New 'Face'

August 1, 2004
Reprints
No Comments

Retortable Carton: A New ‘Face’

IN THE CANNED FOOD AISLE
By Aaron L. Brody, PH.D.
Flexible pouches containing tuna, salmon, ground meat and chicken have generated excitement in the canned food aisle in U.S. supermarkets. Paperboard composite cartons are poised to make a splash in this product category, too.
Hormel Foods is rolling out two brands of chili in a retortable carton from Tetra Pak. Hormel calls the 14.3-ounce carton a “Smart Pak” that’s easy to open and pour.
To open, consumers lift the marked tabs on the sides of the carton. This exposes graphic icons showing how to open the package.
The user then squeezes the carton near the top to form a pouring area on each side of the carton, and tears off the top of the package along a perforated line.  
Other benefits of the rectangular carton include a large face panel for added shelf presence, space savings on retail and pantry shelves and weight savings compared with metal cans and glass jars.
Hormel’s research showed consumers prefer the carton. In markets where Hormel has switched from the metal can to the paperboard carton, chili sales have reportedly risen about 33 percent.
Tetra Pak refers to the package as the Tetra Recart carton, which has enjoyed success in Europe. Uses include pet food and vegetables.
Renowned for its world-wide research, development and leadership in aseptic and extended-shelf-life packaging, Tetra Pak embarked on a daring mission several years ago to package low-acid wet foods in paperboard composites.
The risk increased as Tetra Pak departed from its traditional, scored rollstock of paperboard/aluminum foil laminations in favor of preformed, knocked-down “blanks.”
To accommodate the higher temperatures of retort cooking, Tetra Pak chose a more heat-resistant polypropylene as one interior structural element. This plastic is also more resistant to flavor “scalping” or removing desirable aromas from the food product.
The carton’s duplex structure resists moisture. Its flat base is more stable on the shelf than pouches. Tetra Pak prints the carton in four process colors with a glossy coating.
Laser scoring near the carton’s top adds a perforation for easy opening. Unfortunately, the carton’s aluminum foil barrier core prevents the package from direct microwave reheating.
System engineering
Tetra Pak markets the retortable carton as a total system, embracing machinery, process technology, package materials and multi-packing.
Here’s how the system operates: Cartridges of laminated blanks run at speeds of up to 400 packages per minute. Each carton feeds into an individual carrier to be erected, induction heat-sealed, inverted and filled on a rotary piston filler.
Steam injection into the headspace of the package during filling reduces the oxygen content to permit an 18-month, ambient-temperature shelf life.
The filled cartons then enter a static retort machine, which uses pressurized steam and hot-water spray followed by cold-water spray cooling under pressure within the retort. Upon emerging from the retort cycle, the cartons are cooled and assembled into 12-packs using shrink-film bundling.
In addition to accepting the thermal process for static retorting, regulatory agencies have given the green light to rotary retorting and to a lower-speed, 100-carton-per-minute version to be commercial soon in the United States.
For more information on the Tetra Recart carton, contact Stephen Hellenschmidt at 940.367.3000 or visit www.tetrapak.com
The author, Aaron L. Brody, Ph.D., is President/CEO of Packaging/Brody Inc., a consultancy in food, packaging technology and marketing. Contact Dr. Brody at 770.613.0991 or aaronbrody@aol.com

PS Subscribe

Related Articles

Cosmeceuticals Brand Puts On A New Face

Putting a Good Face on Your Package

Meet the New Face of FlexTech

The Rise of the Retort Package

You must login or register in order to post a comment.

Report Abusive Comment

Subscription Center
  • Print & Digital Edition Subscriptions
  • eNewsletters
  • Online Registration
  • PS News
  • FAQ
  • Subscription Customer Service

More Videos

Packaging Strategies Poll Promotion

Events

February 12, 2020

Converters Expo South

Converters Expo South is a one day expo that unites converters of paper, film, plastics and nonwovens with industry buyers, specialists and suppliers. With hundreds of attendees expected, Converters Expo South will be the place to find manufacturing partners, check out testing and prototyping equipment, meet with producers of disposables and learn the latest in flexo printing and packaging.

April 29, 2020

Converters Expo

Your one-stop shop for all things converting is back in 2020 with additional exhibit space! Celebrating 13 years as the only one-day expo exclusively located in the Midwest, Converters Expo unites converters of paper, film, plastics and nonwovens with industry buyers, specialists and suppliers.

View All Submit An Event

Poll

Packaging Job Woes

What is your top worry about your role in packaging?
View Results Poll Archive

Products

Managing Packaging Design for Sustainable Development: A Compass for Strategic Directions

Managing Packaging Design for Sustainable Development: A Compass for Strategic Directions

See More Products

Packaging Perspectives Podcasts Promotion


PMMI interview today's packaging

Packaging Strategies

PS1219_Cover-144px.jpg

2019 December

The December issue of Packaging Strategies comes with the Resource Guide. In addition, features on private label innovations, branded packaging in ecommerce, the unicorn craze, palletizing/depalletizing solutions, servo drive systems for packaging, digitalization in labeling, sustainable inks and much more!

View More Create Account
  • Helpful Links
    • List Rental
    • Editorial Guidelines
    • Submissions Guidelines
    • Survey And Sample
    • Packaging Brands
    • Partners
    • Polls
    • Want More?
    • Connect
    • Privacy Policy
    • Subscribe
  • PS News
    • Subscribe
    • Customer Service
    • FAQ
  • Packaging Group
    • Flexible Packaging
    • Packaging Strategies
  • Subscribe
    • Print & Digital Edition Subscriptions
    • eNewsletters
    • Online Registration
    • PS News
    • FAQ
    • Subscription Customer Service

Copyright ©2019. All Rights Reserved BNP Media.

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing