Ready Meals Innovations and Trends Serve as the Focus of Inaugural Packforum® Americas’ Seminar
ATLANTA (Oct. 9, 2008) – The first conference at Sealed Air’s new Packforum® Americas focused on innovation, offering a unique look at how food packaging solutions are meeting consumers’ demands for great-tasting food that is easy to prepare.
The Cryovac® Ready Meals Forum, “Glimpsing the Future, Consumer Food Trends and Packaging Solutions,” was held Oct. 7-8 and is the first of many customer seminars planned for Packforum® Americas, Sealed Air’s new innovation-and-learning center for the food packaging industry that opened last month in Atlanta.
“This forum allowed our customers to both see the latest innovations in food packaging and hear experts discuss industry trends,” said Sean Brady, marketing director for Ready Meals. “We examined packaging solutions that should be explored to meet food manufacturers’ needs today and tomorrow and shared research outlining consumers’ packaging attitudes and needs.”
During the two-day Ready Meals Forum, attendees had the opportunity to browse Packforum® Americas’ retail supermarket cases that were stocked with a full range of ready meal options. Participants also took part in breakout sessions on topics such as ethnographic influences on package design and consumer market segmentation; microwave heating and cooking; and extended shelf life through high-pressure ultra-pasteurization
Sealed Air’s 28,000-square-foot Packforum® Americas is a permanent customer forum that brings the food processing, supermarket and foodservice industries together to experience the full global range of Cryovac® food packaging systems, programs and services. The facility includes two professional kitchens – one in a theater setting for demonstrations and a second, back-of-the-house foodservice kitchen to test food packages in a real-world setting. An active packaging equipment interaction area with more than a dozen systems in operation enables customers to test their products in multiple formats.
Following the Ready Meals Forum, Packforum® Americas hosted a Food Engineering – Microwave Heating seminar, a comprehensive one-day course that explored microwave heating through hands-on participation.
Attendees looked at the fundamentals of microwave heating, designs and performance of microwave ovens, packaging technologies for microwaves and the development of reheating and cooking guidelines.
For more information about Packforum® Americas, call 1-800-845-3456 or visit www.packforumamericas.com.
