Take-away meals enjoy a high level of popularity. Like many other products, these dishes require suitable packaging that meets visual and practical criteria. Here you will find information on the topic of packaging in the takeaway sector and the answer to the question of why corrugated board is a particularly suitable material for this type of packaging.

Importance of the take-away concept in gastronomy

The concept of takeaway is relatively simple. You order a meal from a restaurant and pick it up - in other words, you don't eat locally, but at home. The order can be placed on site, by phone or online. In this respect, the take-away model is a kind of middle ground between a visit to the restaurant and a delivery service.

The concept is interesting for you, for example, if you want to quickly pick up something to eat on the way home from work without spending a long time in a restaurant - and also don't have the time to wait for a delivery at home.

Take-away gastronomy already existed in ancient times. However, the sector has become highly professionalized since the early days. The model had particular popularity during the periods of lockdowns due to the Corona pandemic.

During this period, take-away models and deliveries from related services gave consumers the opportunity to continue receiving food from restaurants. For many restaurants, in turn, these models were critical to survival, as revenue from guests dining at the restaurant was lost during the lockdowns.

Although the restaurants are fully open again, it can be assumed that many consumers have discovered the concept of take-away during the pandemic and continue to make use of it. After the lockdowns, it could at least be observed that the boom in delivery services initially continued.

What does the packaging of a hot take-away meal have to do?

As with other products, takeaway packaging plays a major role in creating a positive consumer experience and customer loyalty. For this, the packaging must meet certain criteria, which include:

• Stability
• easy handling
• appealing look
• Keeping food warm

Stability is important with any type of packaging. Take-away packaging should be designed in such a way that it can safely support the weight of the dish in any case and does not open unintentionally. Apart from consumer frustration, the latter would lead to soiling in a car, for example.

As you can imagine, easy handling is no less important for takeaway packaging. They should be easy and effortless to open without parts of the food falling out and becoming inedible.

No less important is an appealing look. After all, the well-known saying "The eye eats with you" applies not only to the food itself, but equally to the corresponding takeaway packaging.

Particularly central, however, is the property that packaging should keep the dish warm for as long as possible. This ensures that the culinary experience does not suffer from a potentially somewhat longer journey home.

In the best case, the packaging additionally seals off the heat to the inside, so that you as a consumer can avoid burning your fingers when touching the product and injuring yourself accordingly.

Which dishes are suitable as take-away products?

In the modern world, a wide variety of dishes are available as take-away options. There are almost no limits to creativity. Among the most common are:

• Burger
• Pizza
• Pasta and rice dishes
• Meat dishes like schnitzel
• Salads

Sushi is also a dish for which the take-away variant is quite common. Even soups can now be purchased and consumed in this way with the right packaging. The variant for kebabs and similar dishes is also common.

A statistic from the portal Statista, which focuses on meals from delivery services, gives you at least some insight into which dishes are suitable and consumed as takeaways. Pizza is in first place, with pasta dishes in second place, followed by Asian noodle dishes and burgers.

However, there are dishes for which the take-away model is only suitable to a limited extent. These include French fries. French fries rarely stay crispy, especially over a long period of time, which means that the culinary experience suffers - a problem that you are certainly familiar with.

Contact us for more information on this topic and if you have any questions about it or our products! We are happy to help you through the packaging jungle!

What are the packaging options for take-away food?

For food that is sold as take-away, you can find a wide variety of packaging. Among the best-known take-away packaging are, for example, among many others:

• Aluminimum shells
• Plastic trays
• Kraft paper packaging

The aluminum trays are often separated into several parts. They are therefore ideal if you want to offer dishes as take-away that consist of several components - for example, a combination of rice, meat and vegetables.

However, they can also be used without these partitions for dishes such as lasagna. In addition, you can find plastic trays with a similar structure on the market. Boxes made of kraft paper are used for pasta dishes, among other things, and soup cups are often made of cardboard.

What corrugated board packaging is available for the take-away sector?

In addition, there is packaging made of corrugated board for a wide variety of products in the take-away sector. The material consists of one or more corrugations that hold two or more cardboard webs together - depending on the type of corrugation. Therefore, corrugated cardboard is often much thicker than, for example, simple kraft paper. Among other things, corrugated board packaging in the takeaway sector include:

• Pizza boxes
• Burger packaging
• Boxes for pasta

Pizza boxes made of corrugated cardboard are popular. The material helps to keep the pizza warm and stably packed.

Takeaway packaging in the form of corrugated board is also often used for burgers. Here it is particularly important that the bun remains crispy in the best case and the burger does not become slack.

Corrugated cardboard is also used as a material for boxes for pasta in addition to kraft paper. The thicker material has the advantage that the dishes stay warm longer. This means that the food can be transported over longer distances before being eaten.

Corrugated board as insulating material

Corrugated board offers certain advantages for take-away packaging. These include the fact that it has an insulating effect to a certain extent - with regard to temperature. This property is mainly due to the cavities integrated in the material by the corrugations.

If you use corrugated board packaging for take-away meals, this has the great advantage that the food stays warm. At the same time, the packaging does not heat up to such an extent that consumers can no longer touch it.

The latter circumstance offers an advantage especially in comparison with aluminum packaging, whose temperature on the outside increases significantly when used for hot dishes. At the same time, materials can be saved because you do not have to pack the box made of corrugated cardboard in a bag like the aluminum tray in order to be able to carry it.

Other advantages of corrugated board packaging for take-away food

However, avoiding the use of further packaging is not the only positive feature that take away packaging made of corrugated cardboard offers you with a view to sustainability.

The material is made from recycled cardboard and newspapers. Therefore, if you place a high value on sustainability with your takeaway business, you can also score points with potential customers with the same attitude through your packaging.

A similarly sustainable image is created by the look of corrugated cardboard. Unless you have your takeaway packaging printed, it will have a brown color that looks very natural. The latter applies equally to the feel.

Little energy is consumed in the production of corrugated board. This is partly due to the fact that the raw materials used often come from the surrounding area.

In addition, corrugated board is an extremely efficient packaging material - even beyond the aspect of sustainability. The material's structure makes it particularly light and stable at the same time.

For the take-away segment, this has the great advantage that there is no additional weight for the consumer due to the packaging, which in turn makes carrying the food more comfortable. This is particularly helpful when the dishes are picked up on foot and you have to cover a certain distance to your destination.

Conclusion

Due to the Corona pandemic, this type of catering, like the delivery service model, experienced a major boom, which continued to a certain extent after the lockdowns. In order to offer customers an all-around positive enjoyment experience, packaging plays a crucial role.

Corrugated board is one of the materials used for this purpose. Among other things, it is used for pizza boxes, pasta boxes or burger packaging. The material has a number of advantages in terms of both practical use and sustainability.

FAQ

1. What does takeaway packaging have to do?

   Take-away packaging must first and foremost be easy to handle and stable so that the food can be transported safely from one place to another. In addition, they should have insulating properties to keep the dishes warm - only then will the consumer get the full enjoyment experience.

2. What are the advantages corrugated board offers for take away packaging?

   Corrugated cardboard is sustainable, strong, insulating and provides consumers with packaging that is both easy to handle and lightweight. Due to its insulating properties, corrugated board keeps food warm.

 

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