Why Reusable Packaging Solutions for Fish and Seafood Are Profitable?
Every day people in all countries buy various seafood in markets and supermarkets and cook delicious and healthy dishes from them. But have you thought about how long its way to your home is? Most of this produce travels down the commercial distribution chain through processing facilities before reaching a retail store. It would be impossible without proper packing that help to keep these perishable eatables always fresh and undamaged.
A new era in eco-packaging begins in 2025! Changes have been made to the EU legislation that will move companies to safer containers and reverse the situation with plastic waste. Single-use packaging will be replaced by RPCs in the European Union in compliance with these changes. That is why companies involved in the process of fish delivery need to change their one-way plastic crates and pallets for those that can be reused.
TRANSPORTATION METHODS
Sea food can be transported by air, sea, railway, or motor vehicles. Each of these methods has its pros and cons. For example, air carriers are fast and can deliver the haul from remote locations. At the same time they are expensive, have limited space, and often their owners don’t want to deal with such orders because of odor that takes much time to get rid of. That is why only 5% of produce is shipped by air. On the contrary, sea vessels are more preferable as they are better adapted for such cargo. But they are noticeably slower than aircrafts.
Accompanying documentation and certificates should be issued appropriately, in many cases cold shipping solutions may be required. Moreover, special attention should be paid to packaging for fish.
QUALITY BOXES MEAN QUALITY FISH
Plastic reusable packaging is extremely popular in logistics industry and it turns out to be very good exactly for fish packing. It has undeniable advantages over its paper and single-use plastic analogues, surpassing them in many aspects. Due to their characteristics, RPCs help their owners to avoid such problems with the contents as
- Fermentation because of weather conditions
- Bacterial growth due to bad washing
- Unhygienic environments because of spoiling of the material they are made of
BENEFITS:
Cleanliness
Any perishable food requires compliance with strict sanitary regime in the process of storage, transportation, and realization. These reusable plastic crates can be disinfected with special cleaning agents and detergents even before the use unlike cardboard boxes. This reduces the possibility of product contamination and helps in retaining the freshness of the food stuff.
Reliability
Reusable plastic containers (RPCs) for fish, shrimps, squids, and crabs are tough and durable enough to be used for frozen produce. They don’t get soaked or out-of-shape because of wet and heavy contents. They can withstand unfavorable conditions and don’t lose their properties and characteristics.
Financial gain
Buying these crates and pallets, you pay once for them and they can be used many times during their lifecycle. Single-use boxes must be changed after each journey especially when it comes to a fish packing box as it will get soaked, deformed, and damaged anyway. As a result you pay less when opt for the multiple-use packing solutions.
Compliance with the temperature regime
Such packaging provides compliance with the temperature regime due to its construction. This is an important condition to keep products fresh and unsoiled.
Perfect lid
A dense lid is reliable and convenient. It isolates the contents from the external factors, helps during transportation and staking onto the pallets in trucks.
Easiness of handling
They are easy to transport and place on pallets. They don’t leak leaving the line clean.
Sustainability
These eco packaging solutions are made of reusable plastic, and this means that they have a much lower impact on the natural environment.
PLASTIC PACKAGING IN AUTOMATED PRODUCTION
Today, production operations tend to become more and more automated. It makes these activities faster and more cost-effective especially when it comes to high-volume production. An automatic line serves to save labor force and improves more than 60% work efficiency, which at the same time, reduces the related safety issues caused by labor work.
The right packaging is crucial for efficient processing operations as it should meet the requirements of your automation strategy. Mainly, this is about a conveyor belt that conveys empty and full fish and seafood crates at the processing facilities. To maximize the performance and avoid emergency situations, you need standardized crates to ensure efficient handling, stacking, and positioning on the belt track.
All these boxes meet some key characteristics that make them ideal for automated facilities:
- Durability
- Standardized dimensions
- Easiness of handling
- Withstand a great weight
- Don’t break on the track
- Convenient for goods storage at the warehouses
Such type of boxes has closed sides. It can be stacked or nested. This is very convenient as when empty RPCs are put inside each other, you can obtain up to 70% of saved space. This makes return transport and storage much cheaper.
The boxes are heavily soiled when used for seafoods. That is why they need high-quality cleaning that can be achieved by utilizing automated washing centers with several stages of washing.
WASHING OF REUSABLE PLASTIC CRATES
To maintain the stringent standards of cleanliness that are set by food industry, these boxes must be carefully disinfected. The detergents used in wash process kill bacteria, viruses, yeast, and molds. At the same time, all these disinfectants and detergents are non-toxic and non-hazardous for the contents put in boxes after washing.
WELL PACK guarantees that automatic washing of reusable packaging at our facilities is highly effective. We are regularly audited by independent third-party experts and have numerous certificates that prove the quality of our work.
Our special washing technology implies usage of latest automated RPC washing lines. Manual washing is also available at our facilities to get better cleaning.
Fish crates are mainly soiled by protein and fat residues. These two types of soiling require different approaches. Proteins are removed at low temperatures (approx. 30-40°C). On the contrary, fat needs much higher temperatures (50-60°C). This compliance with the temperature regime is crucial for taking away and washing off.
We guarantee complete cleaning of containers from:
- Proteins
- Fats
- Bacteria and trace elements
- Odors
- Fish guts, bait bloodstains, and other nasty smelling stuff
- Labels and inscriptions
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Today, environmental care is one of the priorities for responsible businesses. That is why “green” sustainable packaging solutions are also very important. Generally, RPCs produce up to 86% less solid waste than their disposable analogues. It also takes 64% less energy and 80% less water to produce and utilize them than single-use packaging.
Another ecological advantage is less waste than it is from cardboard as their lifecycle may reach 100 times of use. This means also less strain on waste management companies. They cause no harm to trees like paper boxes that need wood to be produced. Plastics they are made of are reusable and can be used for production of new items.
Using ergonomic RPC for fish and seafood permits you to contribute to the environmental protection.
