UK company The Wilkins Group has unveiled its Greentrae cardboard tray for the food sector, said to be oven safe, MAP-sealable and aiming to reduce plastic use and make recycling easier for consumers.
The company says it developed the product in response to growing pressure on food manufacturers to move away from traditional plastic trays. Greentrae apparently performs to the same technical standard as plastic while offering a cleaner, simpler recycling process.
Greentrae uses a cardboard base with a plastic liner that stays in place during cooking but peels away once the meal is finished, allowing consumers to recycle the cardboard. The Wilkins Group adds that the tray is OM7 certified and suitable for gas flushing.
The tray is suitable for microwave, freezer or oven use and is said to help cut both packaging and food waste. Alongside the standard tray, the company has developed a skin-pack version with improved ‘peelability’, removing the need to use scissors or a knife to remove the product inside – a common frustration for customers trying to cook food such as steak or fish.
The Wilkins Group states it is in talks with major manufacturers and is preparing to scale up production at its Colwick headquarters, where capacity is planned to reach 30 million trays in its first year.
In related news, Amcor announced its bespoke three-compartment tray for French manufacturer Cofigeo’s range of single-serve ready meals in June, said to conform to Design for Recycling guidelines and offer a lightweight mono-material polypropylene (PP) construction, suitable for collection and reprocessing in France’s recycling infrastructure. The multi-layer PP tray incorporates a barrier that reportedly delivers over 12 months’ ambient shelf-life.
We recently spoke to NantBioRenewables ahead of this year’s Sustainability Awards, regarding its compostable protein tray entry. Said to have negative carbon emissions, the Wave Ware trays are made in the U.S. with the company’s patented industrially compostable blend of biopolymers, BioCal, and ‘renewable, carbon-negative’ material Ocean Calcium Sand (OCS).
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