Pack news of the week: Flexible retort pouch and biodegradable packaging

High heat packaging developed for beef industry

As part of its effort to maximize the value of Canadian beef, the Beef Information Centre (BIC) has helped develop new beef packaging options for both retail and foodservice.

Flexible retort pouch packaging provides a significant opportunity to add value to beef and strengthen beef’s position in the ready-to-serve market.

Retorting is a process that uses heat and pressure to cook vacuum sealed pre-packaged meat. Since the meat is cooked in the package, the package must be strong enough to withstand relatively high temperatures (100-130 degrees C).

Renewable chemicals market to grow by 30% in five years

Growth in biodegradable packaging will help boost the global renewable chemicals market by almost a third to $59bn in the next five years, according to US researchers.

Market research firm MarketsandMarkets' new report into the Global chemicals market suggests the move to decouple economic growth from using non-renewable resources will help grow the sector from $45bn in 2009 to $59.1bn in 2014.

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Packaging is one of the key uses for renewable chemicals and the biopolymer market has the potential to grow at around 22% a year.

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