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Gastronomy, social trends and green revolution

Ready-meals market: the impact on production lines requires a significant technological adaptation.

The ready meals market has been extremely interesting for many years now. Whether it is a sign of social changes or new people’s consumption habits, it shows different alternating trends: single portions for singles or for those who eat fast meals at work; frozen or freeze-dried family formats for families, where both members of the couple work full-time and have less time available; or vegetarian and vegan dishes.

The list is much longer, but two trends are particularly interesting for MH Material Handling at the moment, because they require a more significant technological adaptation, both in the production phase and later in the whole supply chain.

“I am referring in particular to the search for more elaborate and higher quality recipes, as fresh as possible”, explains Luca Fontana, MH sales director, “and to the environmentalist drive that leads to a radical rethink of the – forcibly disposable – packaging of products  to be consumed even on a daily basis. In the light of these considerations, we want to focus on gastronomy, including the different recipes for fresh pasta, savoury pies and prepared meats that can be combined with different side dishes”.

Attention to packaging

The first element to be analyzed is, obviously, the type of packaging and things are already complicated. In fact, the need to position a fresh and not frozen product on the shelf, which should therefore be packaged in modified atmosphere, clashes with the fact that the packaging materials suitable for this type of packaging cannot be biodegradable or compostable (at least at present), while some compromise can be obtained with vacuum.

Whether you choose compostable materials or stay on the plastic – as long as it is recyclable – with the push for maximum reduction in the amount of material used, the result from the point of view of the manufacturer of processing or packaging machines is the same: you will have to deal with more delicate, fragile or at least very deformable products that therefore introduce some complications.

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