Food Category: Technical Award

Graphic Packaging
Product: QwikCrisp® Pot Pie Bowl

Graphic Packaging also took home the Technical Award in the Food Category for a dual-susceptor pot pie package for Heinz South Africa (PTY) Ltd., Paarl, South Africa. Heinz South Africa wanted to make the pot pie dramatically more convenient for consumers by adding the ability to cook it in the microwave oven and reduce cooking time. The new dual-susceptor package, designed and converted by Graphic Packaging, replaces a standard carton and aluminum bowl that was unsuitable for use in the microwave. The QwikCrisp® Pot Pie Bowl with MicroFlex®-Q patched carton ensures the crust browns top and bottom when the frozen pot pie is heated in the carton in the microwave oven and cuts cooking time to five minutes, an 85% reduction versus the 30-35 minutes needed for preparation in a conventional oven. The QwikCrisp paperboard bowl is dual-ovenable and runs on high-speed packaging equipment. Graphic Packaging produces the uncoated paperboard/adhesive/susceptor/48-gauge polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bowl using a patented process to laminate solid bleached sulfate from International Paper, Memphis, Tennessee, with a high-temperature-resistant metallized polyester film from Celplast Metallized Products, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The MicroFlex-Q patch for the carton consists of paper/adhesive/patterned susceptor/48-gauge PET. The converting process adheres the patterned susceptor from Rol-Vac LP, Dayville, Connecticut, to the PET film and then adhesive laminates the susceptor/PET structure to the paper. The susceptor patch is attached to the interior of the carton on high-speed packaging lines.

Judges loved the cook-in-carton concept and the use of dual susceptors to optimize the microwave heating process. "Too bad the product is not available locally," said one member of the Chicago-based judging panel. "We'd like to try it," everyone agreed.