Packaging ingredients for Ready-to-Make recipes

Greetings,

Our thanks for allowing us to join and reach out to your members.

We’re developing a packaging system for making Thai cuisine more accessible to cooks who aren’t familiar with the ingredients and recipes. We hope to receive feedback from those with the necessary expertise.

A compartmentalized thermoformed shallow plastic tray would contain a set of pre-measured ingredients that include fresh meats, shellfish, herbs and vegetables, and small amounts of pastes, as well as liquid seasonings and stocks.

Trays would be approximately the size of those used for airline meals.

We want to seal in the ingredients in a way that preserves their freshness, but also provides easy transfer one-by-one, as the cook follows the instructions for adding each item to the wok (or saucepan).

Scooping out the solids will be easier than transfer of the liquids , especially as we would like to keep the use of disposal materials like packets, to a minimum.

We would like the trays to be dishwasher safe and reusable.

We’re a startup and so purchase of a high volume thermoforming vacuum packer is not an option, however our needs will be modest at the beginning (say 500 trays per day.)     

Any advice would be much appreciated, and we’re happy to answer any questions. We also have drawings. 

Martin

Dear Martin Amada,

We would like the trays to be dishwasher safe and reusable.

RTE. ?

Frozen ?

Microwaveable ?

Such trays are usually disposable ?

Rgds / Charles.C

Hi Charles, 

For use in fast food type restaurant operations the trays will need to be dishwasher safe and reuseable. 

When we sell them for home consumption they can be disposable. 

We realize this represents two different applications that may require different solutions. The priority is the reusable one for now, but we're researching both. 

The ingredients are not cooked or served in the tray, the tray's only purposes are for display, storage and providing the ease of pre-measurement.

The trays will never be frozen or placed in the oven or microwave. They will have however, need to be refrigerated after manual assembly and at the point of sale.  

They will have easy-to-read removable instructions on top, and should be stackable when empty. 

Martin

Dear Martin,

Seems to be 3 main projects. Possible summaries -

It would appear that yr immediate project is for recommendations over suitable  food grade, plastic trays, capable of holding RTE food up to 100degC for in-restaurant use. Required to be compatible / reusable with dishwasher cleaning.

The detailed size/weight specifications would presumably be supplied by yourselves.

In addition to this forum, I would anticipate a multitude of suppliers would be only too happy to provide detailed offers. :smile:

Yr second project appears to be the same thing but for RTE delivery / take-away. This potentially (?)  implies labelling / rewarming / reheating / freezer storage, etc compatibilities.

Yr third project appears to be regarding –

The ingredients are not cooked or served in the tray, the tray's only purposes are for display, storage and providing the ease of pre-measurement.

Please correct if I have misunderstood.

Rgds / Charles,C

PS – Yr title appears to focus more on the ingredients. Perhaps you may wish to edit it.

Thanks so much for your quick replies Charles.

If RTE means ready-to-eat, in no case will our product be RTE, nor will it ever be cooked or heated in the trays. The trays cannot and will not ever be frozen as this would degrade some of the ingredients. 

We are assembling pre-portioned sets of ingredients for fast food operations and home cooks. In every project the end users will be removing the ingredients from the trays to cook them in a wok, following supplied instructions which will be part of the packaging.   

RTM as in ready-to-make would be an apt description. The market is Thai food lovers worldwide, who find it difficult to find the necessary ingredients to prepare fresh and authentic Thai dishes. When they do find them they are often expensive, and much of what they buy goes to waste. Finally, many are intimidated by the unfamiliar recipes.   :smile:

We will supply the mold maker and thermoformer with detailed drawings with the overall size of the trays and the individual cavities. However we'll need a bit of help in sizing the cavities for adjusting for drafts and shrinkage, etc.

At this early stage we're seeking advice on the packaging materials and the best method for sealing the trays in a way that will permit easy removal of the ingredients one-by-one. 

We will also supply artwork for labels that will need to be screened or otherwise printed on the top of tray.  

Looking at one of our drawings might help, however we'd rather not make them public at this stage. I could send you one attached to a PM.

We are located in Southern Thailand and plan to visit packaging suppliers in Bangkok and Shanghai within the next few weeks. In the meantime we're doing what research we can on line. So thanks again!

Martin 

Dear Martin,

OK, sorry for my slowness, I missed the word "ingredients" (too much TV-Tennis).  Basic requirements are now reasonably clear (to me) although packaging people here might have more specific queries. :smile:

I can make one comment, IMEX some sauces / pastes may (visibly) interact with certain plastics. Unfortunately packaging is not my area of expertise but no doubt reliable local suppliers should be well-aware of any such possibilities for yr range of ingredients.

Hopefully, some posters here may have encountered similar concepts (seems more oriented to take-away to me, or a sukiyaki setup, + wok).

Rgds / Charles.C