The demand for ready-made meals and frozen food has seen a steady growth during the pandemic, as consumers want easily prepared meals and minimally processed food with no additives and long shelf lives. Typically, ready-made meals and frozen food have been served on trays made of plastics and aluminium. Walki is now introducing more sustainable options with its wide portfolio of trays that can be recycled in the paper streams.

"Grease resistance has usually been tackled with a plastics barrier, but that makes it difficult to recycle the tray as the plastics is difficult to separate from the fibre content. That is why we wanted to innovate tray materials that can be fully recycled in the paper streams", says Matthias Zimmermann, Business Line Manager for Barrier Board at Walki.

Walki has three solutions in its portfolio. Walki®Pack Tray PET is a tray material that has a very thin PET-lining which still classifies the material as a monomaterial, making it suitable for recycling in paper streams.

The PET-free Walki®Pack Tray UR comes with excellent release properties. "When moving away from PET-liners, you need not only to keep good ovenability in mind but also ensure that the food does not stick to the tray, resulting in food residues." Both trays are approved for conventional ovens up to 220 °C and for a maximum time of 60 minutes.

Walki®Pack Food Service Trays have a high fibre-content, provides good grease barriers and is also recyclable in paper streams. It's intended for applications that do not require reheating. The demand for ready-made meals and frozen food is expected to keep growing. "We need to be mindful that this trend does not mean more use of plastics. If you want to cut down on plastics, a good place to start is trays", explains Matthias Zimmermann.