So as the Ready-To-Eat Meals Has Gone Viral, the Thin-Wall Packaging Is Emerging

Young people today are getting busier by the day and spend less time on daily meals. They might address their needs by having meals in a restaurant or ordering takeaway online.

In recent times, stay-at-home economy has triggered the changing of consumption habits and ready-to-eat meals (shortened as RTE meals) have emerged as the fast-paced life of today requires. With the advantages of easy heat and instant eat, RTE meals can effectively solve the problems like I don't know how to cook, I cannot cook it well or I have no time to cook.

Or we can say, RTE meals help novice cooks cook like skilled cooks by lowering the cooking difficulty of the ingredients from uncooked to the tasty dishes on the dining table.

The types of RTE meals

RTE meals refer to the food that is ready to cook, ready to heat, ready to eat and ready to combine.

1. Ready-to-eat foods refer to the pre-prepared meals that can be eaten right away without preparation, heating or cooking. For example, prepared sandwiches or salads.

2. Ready-to-heat foods are pre-prepared meals that are already cooked and only need to be heated before eating like frozen pizza.

3. Ready-to-cook foods are raw ingredients that are pre-cut, seasoned, mixed and divided into smaller portions, they are ready-made dishes frozen or kept at room temperature for cooking, e.g. instant hotpot.

4. Ready-to-combine foods are typically raw ingredients with initial processing like pre-cleaning and pre-cutting, e.g. small pieces of meat with fresh vegetables.

Semi-prepared foods industry

is a rapidly-growing new market with great potential

To put it in a nutshell, RTE meals are the convenience foods with sanitary and user friendly packaging made by manufacturers who prepare the ingredients and seasoning in advance and adopt the mode of modern standardization assembly line to help consumers simplify the cooking process, all you have to do is just heat, steam or fry before eat.

Research report on the development trend of China's RTE meals industry in 2022 showed, the domestic market size for RTE meals reached 345.9 billion Chinese Yuan in 2021. It is expected to exceed 516.5 billion CNY by 2023 with a growth rate of more than 20% and cross a trillion CNY by 2026.

The RTE meals economy would definitely create the rapid growth of the markets of catering business and plastic products. According to the big data revealed by Qichacha, a Chinese technology company specialized in inquiring the business information of enterprises, there are more than 690,000 Chinese companies' names or business scopes showing keywords like quick frozen, RTE meals and semi-prepared foods. In the geographical distribution terms, Shandong Province holds the largest share-13.71% with more than 9400 companies and is ahead of Henan Province, Jiangsu Province and Guangdong Province, which are over 5000 companies.

Photo of the Establishment of Shunde RTE Meals Industry Development Association

(Shunde Subdistrict is in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, China)

The development of RTE meals is experiencing a rapid growth period and supporting policies all over the country are made to facilitate its expansion. Especially this year, RTE meals and related information are intensively mentioned in major policy reports, which have brought strong momentum into its development. RTE meals market seems to become a "new racing circuit" for the catering industry in the future.

Various packing categories

generate plenty of room for innovations

RTE meals packaging varies from bowl, box, packet to can to meet different requirements for the appearance of food or other functions. Some should be able to withstand heating up to 121℃, some should be able to withstand quick frozen down to -40℃ and other standards of food safety. There is plenty of room for innovations on packaging materials under the trend of category segmentation of RTE meals.

At present, the packaging materials of RTE meals includes thermoplastic, thermoset plastic, metal, paper, etc. However, the packaging innovation is insufficient and the design is not user friendly, which lead to a poor user experience. The ingredients and seasonings of RTE meals are packaged independently, which results in a waste of packaging. In addition, RTE meals have strict requirements for freshness, and the environmentally friendly packaging problems caused by cold-chain transport also need to be solved urgently.

For the issues mentioned above, the related controller from High-speed Packaging Dept. of YIZUMI said, there are a few ways to breakthrough in terms of the huge needs and high profile for RTE meals packaging. First, to satisfy consumers' high requirements for the transparency and freshness by inventing transparent high barrier packaging. Second, to pay more attention on packaging design and add more interactive features. Third, to release different material and specification base on different applications. Fourth, to seek for more sustainable approaches to reduce the pollution of packaging.

The thin-wall molding technology

encourages the related industries' expansion

Innovation for packaging is far beyond the alteration in forms and appearance, but a collection of a series of precise design from demand to experience.

As an observer and promoter of the packaging industry, YIZUMI with years of accumulations of technology commits to becoming the best cost-effective turnkey solution provider in the field of thin-wall packaging, promoting the expansion of RTE meals industry.

With rich experience in the production of thin-wall product, YIZUMI can provide an integrated solution for RTE meals packaging based on thin-wall injection molding machine and mold, like PAC and PAC-K3 series machines. YIZUMI aims to help customers offer more options of packaging and better control the cost.

Product: Circular food container

Material: PP

Number of cavities: 2, 4, 6, 8

Product: Rectangular food container

Material: PP

Number of cavities: 2, 4, 6, 8

Considering the huge potential of the market, the RTE meals industry is bound to usher in an unprecedented period of growth and drive the development of more upstream and downstream industries. In addition to agriculture and service industries related to food, the large demand for packaging encouraged by RTE meals also will bring the development of manufacturing industry off to the next level.

If you are interested in the high-speed packaging system, or more information about thin-walled molding machines, please feel free to contact with us.

Email: imm@yizumi.com

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