Retort Flexible Pouches: Selecting a Co-Packer, 2005 PLACE Conference

The food industry continues to evolve and become ever creative in its approach to food production, food packaging, food marketing, and food delivery (both at the retail and food service levels). This combined effort at all levels of the food delivery chain is aimed at increasing sales and market share, of course, by giving the consumer a sense that they are not only purchasing a product, but more importantly, making a lifestyle decision that represents them. These lifestyle decisions can be based on the convenience and/or value a product offers, the tastes and variety a product offers, and even the perception that a chosen product or brand conveys a premium “lifestyle” over other brands (example, Starbucks versus other coffees). Every industry has its share of products and product marketing that aims to sell not just a product but to sell a “brand”, a definition of a lifestyle and an image as created by that product (witness bottled water in its many different packages and now, flavors, which consumers drink to suggest that they are health conscious and care about their well-being or drink to suggest their choice of a premium lifestyle by preferring bottled water over tap water or other bottled water brands). The rest of the food industry is no different, and increasingly in the last few years, has become more creative in marketing to consumers, as a result of competition both locally (on a national level) and globally, as more ethnic food products make their way onto the shelf and as more products continue to break the stereotype of typical packaging solutions. To this end, food products prepared, packaged, and marketed in flexible retort pouches are no different. They have been around in this country for many years (on the fringe) as military MREs and available in other countries as “normal” food solutions in areas where refrigeration, shelf-space, and disposal space are at a premium.