Pilgrim’s Europe and UK Retailer Sainsbury’s Eliminate 300 Metric Tons of Plastic Waste Annually with PaperSeal™ Shape

Evolving legislation around packaging and plastic, along with ambitious brand and retailer packaging sustainability goals, has created a pressing need for innovative paperboard packaging solutions across Europe.

Consumers are also demanding packaging with less plastic — but they expect the same convenience, performance, and functionality that they’re used to.

For UK retailer Sainsbury’s and its fresh poultry supplier, Pilgrim’s Europe, these challenges created the need to move Sainsbury’s breaded chicken range out of plastic trays and into a paperboard alternative that maintained product protection, shelf-life, operational efficiency, and consumer appeal.

The new solution needed to:

• Significantly reduce plastic
• Meet household recyclability guidelines
• Be operationally efficient — and cost-efficient — to produce

Working collaboratively with Pilgrim’s Europe and in partnership with G. Mondini, a world leader in tray-sealing technology, Graphic Packaging developed the PaperSeal™ Shape tray.

This barrier-lined, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) paperboard tray:

• Comprises more than 90 percent FSC®-certified paperboard by weight
• Uses nearly 90% renewable raw materials
• Offers exceptional rigidity and seal integrity thanks to its unique double-flange construction
• Runs on existing tray sealing machines

Combining enhanced packaging sustainability, performance and efficiency, PaperSeal Shape is driving meaningful change.

With a plastic reduction of 72-82% per tray, around 300 metric tons of plastic have been removed from the supply chain annually. Recyclable in UK household waste streams without the need for the barrier liner to be removed, PaperSeal Shape is easy for the consumer to handle post-use. And because the tray runs on existing machinery, it seamlessly integrates into Pilgrim’s Europe’s processes.