Iglo serves Gourmet Fillet in a cardboard bowl
Just in time for Green Week 2020 in Berlin, frozen food manufacturer Iglo is bringing a sustainable packaging innovation to the frozen food shelves. Marking the 50th anniversary of the Iglo classic Gourmet Fillet, the wide range of variants is now available in a heat-resistant cardboard bowl. The new bowl is made of over 95 per cent cardboard with a baking-paper-like surface, which replaces the recyclable aluminium trays and can be disposed of in paper for recycling.
“Development of the sustainable cardboard bowl is a milestone on the way to greater sustainability. In our sustainability strategy we have set ourselves the goal of making all our packaging 100 per cent paper-based and recyclable by 2022. The cardboard bowl represents a sustainable solution that can’t be matched by the aluminium or PET composite trays currently available on the market”, explains Antje Schubert, Managing Director of Iglo Western Europe. With its innovation, Iglo is moving away from the previous paper-based oven trays, as their PET coating makes them a composite material that cannot be disposed of as either paper or plastic for recycling. “Iglo won’t have anything to do with solutions that fool the consumer with a fake paper tray that actually contaminates paper for recycling because of its PET content,” says Schubert. According to the Bremerhaven company, the changeover saves around 250 tons of aluminium annually.
In cooperation with packaging suppliers, the company spent two years on testing to come up with the recyclable cardboard tray. In the new packaging, the fillets can be microwaved as well as baked in a normal oven. From now on, the Nutri-Score will also be printed on the Iglo packaging and will be visible to consumers on the freezer shelf. The new Nutri-Score nutritional labelling provides consumers with guidance when shopping for a balanced diet.
At the end of 2019, Frosta, another Bremerhaven company, announced that it would be the first frozen food manufacturer to do away with plastic bags for its products. Frosta has developed a paper bag that will replace the current plastic bag from January 2020.
