Heemskerk fresh & easy offers affordable basic salads in recyclable PET trays from Hordijk Verpakkingen. The packaging has been made thinner, saving hundreds of kilos of plastic per week and reducing costs.
At the factory in Rijnsburg (ZH), Heemskerk produces a wide range of fresh products daily, including ready-made salads. As prices rise, sales of premium meal salads are declining, but the basic version has proven to be very popular and fills a gap in the market.
“We position these as a tasty side dish for dinner, or as a lunch. And still under two euros, so people are more likely to pick them up again,” says Product Development Manager Simon Kloos. “We’ve already sold over one hundred thousand salads in a short time.”
‘A few grams make a big difference’
For its salads, Heemskerk has been a loyal customer of the form-stable trays and bowls from Hordijk Verpakkingen for many years. For the new basic salads, they selected an existing recyclable mono-material PET tray with a high percentage of recycled PET.
Specifically for the new salads, the tray was made thinner. Kloos: “With so many packages rolling off the line here, a few grams make a big difference. The fact that this tray contains about ten percent less plastic quickly adds up to hundreds of kilos per week. This positively affects our purchasing costs and the Waste Management Contribution to Verpact, because we pay that per kilo. Secondly, less plastic is of course also more sustainable.”
That the packaging contains a high percentage of recycled content is also important to Heemskerk.
“In our raw materials policy, we’ve stated that we always want a percentage of rPET in our trays. That’s more sustainable and financially attractive, because this also reduces the Waste Management Contribution. We’ve noticed that the thinner rPET-based packaging for the basic salads really excites our customers. And the packaging helps us prepare for the upcoming Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.”
No major investments
The thinner tray has been thoroughly tested and meets production standards. Kloos:
“Based on the drawing and specifications, we assessed whether it was theoretically feasible, and then we ran a test series. That went just fine with this tray. For us, this is not a completely new tray – the mould parts, the line guidance, and the machines for the topseal film are already in place. It’s also the trend nowadays: bringing something new to market with as little investment as possible.”